


Getting Back to Impossible

by Leia1979



Series: Impossible [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:00:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 27,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5179469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leia1979/pseuds/Leia1979
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of "Journey's End," Rose Tyler must figure out how to cope with being left behind in a parallel world with a Doctor who isn't quite the Doctor. It will take an alien threat, time-travel, and a little help from friends and family to get them back together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to my bit of post-"Journey's End" therapy that happened to get away from me. I, of course, own nothing _Doctor Who_ other than some T-shirts.

### PART I - Voyage of the Rather Unfortunate

Cardiff in Pete's world looked exactly the same, the Doctor thought as he surveyed Roald Dahl Plass in the dim evening light. He could identify the spot where he'd landed the TARDIS years ago, between the shining silver water tower and the oval of pillars currently lit in a variety of colours. Of course, the TARDIS had never actually been to this universe's Cardiff.

If everything went right, that was about to change.

He had a project that required the Space-Time Rift, and the offices of Torchwood Three were perfectly suited. The Doctor found the entrance to the Hub, the home of Torchwood's Cardiff operations, in a small tourism office. The desk was unoccupied at this time of night, but the Doctor was able to swipe his brand-new Torchwood ID badge and a false wall swung open.

The office hidden underground was minimally staffed, especially at night, but the person he needed was there, just as he had been told she would be. She was focused on a bank of computer screens that lit up the cavernous, currently dim room, and she hadn't heard him enter.

The petite woman with shoulder-length black hair looked familiar, he realised, and not just from the ID photo he'd seen in Torchwood records. He'd met her in London years before, not that she would remember. Even if this were the same Toshiko Sato, the Doctor looked very different now.

"Who are you?" she asked, finally noticing his presence and removing her glasses. "How did you get in?"

"I'm the Doctor," he replied, showing her his Torchwood ID. It wasn't psychic paper, but it worked surprisingly well.

The woman frowned as she examined the ID. "Your name is really John Smith?"

"I get that all the time," the Doctor answered, snapping the wallet shut. "I have a very secret project that I could use your help with." He pulled a small lump of coral from his pocket and held it out in his hand. Tosh was starting to wonder if he was a madman, despite the official ID.

"Look, Doctor Smith—"

"Just the Doctor," he corrected automatically.

Tosh frowned again. "Doctor, I'm not sure what you think I do, but I'm not sure how to help you."

"This is a piece of TARDIS coral. With the right equipment and energy from the Rift, it will grow."

"Into what?" Tosh asked. Why was the word "TARDIS" so familiar? Suddenly she realised where she'd heard it before—from Rose Tyler. Tosh helped develop the dimension cannon Rose used to travel back to her own parallel world and had worked with Rose for over two years on the project. Though they hadn't become best friends—Rose had been too focused on her mission to have much of a social life—they'd had a number of long conversations whilst they worked. Suddenly everything this strange man said clicked into place. "You're _that_ Doctor, Rose's Doctor, the alien who travels through time."

"And space," he added. "Don't forget space." He handed her a folded piece of paper. "Can you get all of this? And is there a safe spot for the coral? Somewhere no one will bother it?" He hated to leave the precious coral behind, but the Rift was in Cardiff and Rose was in London, and although the Doctor had been known to be in two places at once before, it wasn't currently possible in this universe.

Tosh read over the extensive list. "I think so. And I won't tell Torchwood you're growing a spaceship."

* * *

Two weeks later, the Doctor returned to Cardiff to check on Tosh's progress. She'd turned an old storage room in the basement with rough stone walls into a laboratory. She assured him no one bothered with the old room, and the thick layer of dust confirmed it.

Tosh thought the Doctor looked a bit discouraged, and she quickly assured him she'd followed all of his instructions, although a few of the items on his list simply didn't exist yet. He smiled weakly and thanked her, saying he'd take it from there. Tosh had been brilliant—everything was exactly right given what was available in the time period. But that wasn't what bothered him.

It was Rose. She was withdrawn, conflicted; he could see it in her face. She'd been that way since his other self left them on a Norwegian beach in this universe, and he didn't know what to do about it. For now, he would leave her alone like she'd asked.

Tearing himself away from his maudlin thoughts (human emotions, he cursed), the Doctor was pleased to see the piece of coral already showed signs of growth from the energy of the Rift. He busied himself with the equipment, implementing Donna's brilliant idea to vastly accelerate the new TARDIS' growth. He allowed himself only a momentary pang of sadness for his wonderfully brash, ginger friend.

With the coral fragment's environment optimised, the Doctor began to explore the basement of Torchwood Three. He wasn't surprised in the least to find another room filled to bursting with alien tech—flotsam and jetsam that came through the rift. Most of it was junk and refuse, but some of it was dangerous. The Doctor made a mental note to dismantle the more perilous items later. As he picked through the room, he pocketed items that could be useful for the fledgling TARDIS, thankful he'd worn his blue suit from the other Doctor's TARDIS with the bigger-on-the-inside pockets. He added building a new sonic screwdriver to his mental list—he could certainly scavenge the parts for one here, but it was the programming that took time.

He returned to the vacant room that now housed the TARDIS coral and unloaded his pockets. Even with the Rift and the dimensional stabiliser modified as best he could given current technology, he calculated it would still be decades before the new TARDIS was ready to travel.

There were plenty of adventures to be had on Earth in the meanwhile.

 


	2. Chapter 2

Rose Tyler stared at the ceiling of her darkened room, unable to sleep. She was thinking about him again. The Doctor. The proper Time Lord Doctor. Was he lonely? Did he miss her? How could he have left her on that beach again after she'd travelled so far to get back to him? ****

Six weeks had passed since that day, and yet she still kept thinking about it.

She'd done what he'd asked and looked after the other—human—Doctor. With Pete's help, he had an identity, a flat, and a consultant position with Torchwood that he reluctantly accepted. Rose hadn't spent much time with him after that. It was still too confusing—like when the Doctor had regenerated but worse. This time she knew he was still out there, possibly all alone.

Rose had asked for space from this man who looked and sounded like the Doctor, who had told her he loved her, and who had held her hand whilst the TARDIS and its Time Lord disappeared, possibly forever. He'd looked hurt by her request but graciously agreed. Rose had pulled away even further by mostly avoiding Torchwood for the past month, as well. She'd spent four years working non-stop to get back to him, and he'd left her behind. Now what was she supposed to do?

Her mobile rang, and the screen lit up the dark room. It could only be Torchwood calling this early in the morning. "Yeah," she answered breathily. Her throat was tight from trying not to cry—again—as she tortured herself with thoughts of what should have been.

"Miss Tyler, you're needed straight away. A ship has been detected in orbit," a young woman's voice informed her.

"What kind of ship?"

"We don't know yet. Hopefully you and Doctor Smith can identify it."

Rose exhaled a breath. Of course they needed him for this. They needed him far more than her. "Did you contact him already?"

"Yes, ma'am. He's on his way."

Rose told the woman she'd be there soon and ended the call. She dressed quickly in the dark, pulling on jeans, a t-shirt, and a tan leather jacket. The blue one she'd worn on her jumps with the dimension cannon got shoved in the back of her closet upon her return from Bad Wolf Bay and hadn't been out since. She didn't need anything else to remind her of that day. 

Rose had never expected to still live with her parents at 24, but in this world, her family had a mansion and she'd spent too much of her days at Torchwood to care where she slept. The house was dark and quiet as she stole through the hallway and down the stairs. A light was on in the kitchen, and Rose was surprised to see her mum sat at the table with a cup of tea. She was in her dressing gown with her pale hair secured in a clip atop her head.

"Mum, are you all right?"

"Fine. Tony was up, so I went to check on him," Jackie said tiredly. "You're not sleeping, either." It wasn't a question.

"Work called," Rose replied, not wanting to get pulled into the same discussion for the hundredth time. She kissed her mother on the cheek. "Love you!"

Jackie was undeterred. "Rose, I know this has been hard on you. It took me a long time to realise that Pete wasn't the same man as your father, and I wasn't the same as his Jackie. Maybe we were once, but we had twenty years apart. But I still love him, even if he's not the same."

"Dad died," Rose countered harshly, turning away and feeling terrible as soon as the words left her mouth. "The Doctor is still out there."

"He's here, too, you know. Just give him a chance, sweetheart," Jackie called after her, and Rose thought that only in a parallel universe would her mum ever tell her to give the Doctor a chance. 

* * *

He was already there by the time Rose arrived in the briefing room of Torchwood One. Her heart clenched involuntarily when she spied the mussed dark hair and brown pinstriped suit. Where had he found that? On closer inspection, it wasn't quite the same suit she'd last seen on the fully Time Lord Doctor—the stripes were cream instead of blue, and the brown was slightly darker.

"Hello Rose," he greeted, noticing her stare. He looked hopeful, his dark eyes wide.

"Hello," she responded automatically. She tore her gaze away and sat down in the only remaining empty seat, which of course happened to be right in front of him. She was having trouble focusing with him so close. Rose forced her attention to the screen at the front of the room and saw an image of the alien ship currently orbiting the Earth.

"It looks like a cruise ship," Rose said. The vessel resembled a giant dark grey ocean liner with extra bits that glowed blue. Engines, she thought. It looked like no spacecraft she'd seen before, though she supposed the same could be said for every new spacecraft. 

"Have you seen it before?" the director leading the briefing asked. Knightley, she thought, or was it Kingsley?

Rose started to shake her head no when the Doctor piped up behind her. "I have. Well, sort of. In the parallel universe. And it was indeed a cruise ship." 

"We've been unable to contact the vessel. Is it dangerous?" Director Kingsley asked, looking over Rose's head at the Doctor. Rose reminded herself to keep looking at the screen.

The Doctor hemmed and hawed before settling on, "Possibly. If it's the same situation as before, definitely. The passengers are harmless. They've just come for a bit of sightseeing. It's the crew of the Titanic you need to watch out for."

"The Titanic?" Rose scoffed, finally turning in her chair to look at the Doctor. "Why would they call it that?"

The Doctor shrugged. "They said it was the most famous ship in Earth's history."

"Did they not bother to read what happened to it? Maybe watch the film?"

"Given what they thought about Christmas, I don't think they had a very good grasp on Earth history."

"Christmas?" Jake Simmonds asked tentatively from his place several seats over from Rose, not sure if he was about to lead the Doctor off on a tangent he'd regret. Or if he'd regret butting in on what was turning out to be the longest conversation between Rose and the Doctor in weeks.

"The Sto came here to experience Christmas on Earth. A first-class holiday cruise." He left out the next part of that statement, _before all the death and destruction._ A bit melodramatic, he thought.

"Did you tell them to come back in December?" Rose asked.

"Well, that's just it. They came on the twenty-fourth of December in the parallel universe. Anything and everything could be different now."

"Maybe they've come for Halloween," Jake quipped.

Rose shot Jake a look to shut it and turned her attention back to the Doctor. "So you stopped whatever horrible thing was going to destroy the Earth on Christmas. Again."

An old familiar grin started to appear on the Doctor's face before he changed his mind and it fell away. "Habit, I guess. I just kept the Titanic from crashing into the Earth and killing everything on the planet. Does that happen here, too?"

Other people in the room looked confused, but following the Doctor's train of thought had become second nature to Rose. "No," she replied. The Doctor looked disappointed until she added, "New Year's." The cheeky grin he gave her in response made her heart ache.

The director tried to pull the briefing back on track before it went too far down the rabbit hole. "All right, then. Tyler, Doctor Smith, we're going to get you on that ship so you can check it out. Make sure it isn't hostile."

"And what if it is hostile?" the Doctor asked. "Because if you're thinking what I think you're thinking, you can't."

"Can't what?" Director Knightley asked, utterly confused.

"Blow it up with a missile or a laser or what have you. Those are nuclear storm drives. Detonate them and you destroy half the planet."

The director's face turned sour. "Then take a larger team."

The Doctor looked as if the man had just suggested sending a litter of newborn kittens to investigate. "So we look like an invasion? No, Rose is all I need. Stopped it single-handedly last time, I did. Well, the other me did...still me, I suppose. Well, I did have some help."

The Doctor paused for air and looked at Rose, who was staring at him with an expression he couldn't quite pin down. It was something like the first time she saw the Earth from space aboard Platform One. Like she couldn't quite believe what she was seeing.

"Grab your cocktail dress, Rose. We've got a party to crash," he said excitedly. "Allons-y!"

 


	3. Chapter 3

Rose retreated to her office to grab supplies but was moving slower than usual as she mulled over the briefing. The human Doctor, as she had a tendency to think of him, had been the most Doctor-ish she'd seen since the day the TARDIS left Bad Wolf Bay. Being Earth-bound must have been hard on someone so used to travelling, someone who lived for adventure. She felt a pang of guilt for running away instead of helping him adjust.

She grabbed a short black dress she kept hanging on the back of the door for times she had to run straight from work to some event of Pete's. It had taken awhile for her to get used to being a minor celebrity in this world. Pete's PR people had spun a fantastic story of the baby Pete and Jackie Tyler had given up for adoption when they were a struggling young couple, how Rose Tyler finally found her birth parents and was reunited with them. No one outside of Torchwood knew her mum wasn't this world's Jackie Tyler, who had actually died at the hands of the Cybermen years earlier.

Rose Tyler, the Vitex heiress, was a Cinderella story. Before she met the Doctor, she imagined how fun being rich and famous would be. The clothes and the parties would be amazing. In reality, it had been a bit of a nuisance, taking time away from her efforts to get back to her own world and to the Doctor.

Rose changed from her jeans into the sleek black dress that hugged her figure. It was from some posh designer she hadn't heard of before coming to this world. She ran her hands through her blonde hair, slipped her feet into gold flats, and added a few swipes of mascara. Rose had a small black satin clutch that she wished were bigger on the inside to hold more than just the bare necessities. She stuffed her mobile, a Torchwood-issued energy pistol, and a couple items she kept in a locked desk drawer into the bag and pulled the thin chain strap over her shoulder.

A knock on the door told her it was time to go. She grabbed the door handle expecting Jake to yell at her to hurry up but found the Doctor standing outside her door. He'd exchanged his suit for a tux and white Converse for black. She had no idea where he'd found a tux so quickly. They stared at each other in silence for a moment before the Doctor offered her his arm. Rose hesitated only a moment before slipping her arm through his.

"How did you end up on the Titanic?" Rose asked, finally breaking the silence as they walked. "In the other world."

"Crashed into the TARDIS. Thought we'd gone off course and landed in 1912 for a moment."

"We?" Rose couldn't help ask. She wanted to kick herself for sounding jealous.

"Just me and the TARDIS. Wasn't long after Martha had decided she'd had enough of me."

Rose didn't know much about Martha other than she liked her attitude. The TARDIS had been too crowded on the journey back to have a chance to talk to her, but she'd been surprised when Martha knew exactly who she was. She almost felt like the other woman was just a little jealous of her. How anyone could be jealous of a girl who got trapped in a parallel world, she didn't know.

"So how exactly are we supposed to get there? Zeppelin?"

"Huh?" Rose asked, pulling herself out of her thoughts.

"I was kidding about the zeppelin. Aboard the Titanic," the Doctor clarified.

"Oh, transmat beam." At the Doctor's puzzled expression, she added, "This world developed a dimension cannon and you're questioning the transmat?"

She led him to a lab within Torchwood he hadn't seen before. Grey concrete walls stretched two stories high. Lights of all colours blinked on consoles, and people scurried to and fro. Mirrored posts formed an octagon in one part of the room with a myriad of wires strung between the posts.

"This is your transmat?" the Doctor asked sceptically.

Rose pulled her arm from his. "Unless you've got a vortex manipulator or a TARDIS in your pocket, yes."

"Working on it," he mumbled under his breath.

"From what Doctor Smith has told us, we're going to put you on the bridge of the ship," the cool blonde woman at the console informed them.

"Right, thanks," Rose said as she gave the sleeve of the Doctor's tux a tug. "Come on!" She grabbed his hand and pressed a small plastic object in it.

"An earbud?" The Doctor asked suspiciously, thinking back to how the ubiquitous devices were corrupted for use as mind control the first time they visited this parallel world.

Rose placed her own in her right ear. "Not like those. We use it for translation. There's nothing that can provide telepathic translation on this world."

The Doctor reluctantly inserted the translator in his ear and joined Rose inside the octagon. When they materialised on the ship, the Doctor took a brief moment to pat himself down and ensure all of him was in the right place.

The bridge of the Titanic looked just like he remembered except that the large wooden wheel of the ship was controlled by a single tall golden android. No halos this time, he noted, and this android wore a navy blue uniform instead of a white robe.

"Where's Midshipman Frame?" the Doctor asked. Rose had no idea who he was talking about.

The android's passive face turned to them. "Information: there is no being by that name aboard the Titanic."

"That's too bad. I rather liked Alonso." The Doctor looked over the screens reporting the ship's status. "Engines operational. Shields operational. Maybe this was just a false alarm."

Rose doubted there was any such thing where the Doctor was concerned.

"What is the purpose of this voyage?" he asked the android.

"Information: to experience the primitive culture of Earth."

"Well, now, it's not that primitive."

Rose elbowed him. "This from the man known to call humans 'stupid apes'."

"First of all, that was the last me, and second, I'd be insulting myself now if I said that. Come on," he said grabbing her hand. "Might as well look around since we're here.

* * *

The ship was lavish, not that Rose had ever seen even a regular seafaring cruise ship in person. They found a lounge a few floors down from the bridge where a party was in full swing. The room was gorgeous but strangely old-fashioned with crystal chandeliers and antique wood furniture with velvet upholstery. Black and white-clad servers passed drinks and hors d'oeuvres whilst a band played on a small stage. Elegant passengers wore tuxedos and long evening gowns. Rose actually felt slightly underdressed in her knee-length dress, even if it was couture.

"Excuse me!" A haughty-looking man with a large nose and thin moustache bustled up to them. He looked so stiff and fussy he probably starched his tuxedo. "This is the first-class lounge. May I see your tickets?"

The Doctor started patting down his pockets as he contemplated how he could talk his way out of this situation. The fussy man just stared disdainfully at the Doctor's trainers.

"Here you go," Rose said calmly, as she pulled something out of her purse and handed it to the man.

Suddenly the man's haughty attitude transformed into a simpering smile as he passed the small folio back to Rose. "Miss Tyler, Doctor Smith, please accept my sincere apologies. We've had tourist-class passengers try to sneak into the lounge. Do let me know if there's anything I can do to make your voyage more enjoyable."

Once the man was out of hearing range, the Doctor turned to Rose. "Is that? Where'd you get psychic paper?" he demanded in a stage whisper.

Rose gave him a sad smile. "It's yours. Borrowed it when we were at Canary Wharf. I didn't have a chance to give it back before…"

Idiot, he berated himself. "Oh, Rose," he said, taking her hand again. Rose thought she would mind his being so close when she'd done her best to stay away for weeks, but the gesture was familiar and comforting.

"It's funny," she said, suddenly and deliberately changing the topic.

"What's that?"

"A girl named Rose on the Titanic. Get it?" The Doctor's raised eyebrow said he didn't. "Like in the film." She sighed and slapped his shoulder with her free hand.

"Oi! What was that for?" The Doctor sounded indignant. She just smiled at him, and it was the first real Rose-smile he'd seen since they'd left the TARDIS weeks earlier. The familiar smile that was all teeth with a little peek of tongue. His single human heart leapt at the sight. He returned her smile with a mischievous grin and finally released her hand in order to pluck two glasses of champagne off a passing tray.

"This is nice," Rose commented, taking the offered glass. "Actually being a guest for once." She gave the Doctor a wry look before turning to gaze at the planet framed in a large picture window and sipping her champagne. "Does it feel different, being human?"

"Part human," he corrected. "A bit. It's more quiet in my head. My senses don't feel quite as sharp. Emotions are different, closer to the surface. Is it like this all the time?"

Rose twirled her champagne glass between her fingers. "I don't know. I guess so. Does it usually feel like this when you regenerate?"

"Wasn't quite as bad as usual, actually. Despite the human part. There's something to be said for still looking and sounding the same." He looked down at Rose. "I get the feeling this was harder on you than before," he said quietly.

Rose was silent at first, not sure she wanted to have this conversation in the midst of a party. "There are two of you now. And he…" She blinked, forcing the tears away by sheer will. "He left me behind again."

The Doctor cursed himself for bringing it up. Every time he thought things might work out, there it was. His other self. The full Time Lord with a ship and the entire universe at his feet who left them on a beach in bloody Norway. "It was always to keep you safe," he said softly, defending the man who was and wasn't him. Maybe he hadn't been the one to leave Rose in a parallel universe this time, but he'd sent her there once before to try to keep her safe. Even that wasn't the first time he'd sent her away to protect her.

"For somebody who thinks he's so brilliant, you can be awfully thick. How many times would you have died if I hadn't come back?" she demanded, poking him in the chest as her sadness turned to frustration.

The Doctor looked her in the eyes. "I would have died the day we met if it weren't for you, Rose Tyler."

"What, the Daleks?" She thought back to her surprise at seeing a second, identical Doctor stepping out of the TARDIS with Donna aboard the Crucible.

"The shop basement. What was it called, Henry's?"

"Henrik's. You really remember it all?" Rose wasn't quite sure why she doubted it. Even when his appearance and personality changed, he'd still remembered everything.

"Over nine hundred years," he said proudly.

"I remember, too, you know," she said softly after a bit. "The Time Vortex. The Bad Wolf."

The Doctor stared at her wide-eyed. "But I took the memories with the Vortex. You said you didn't remember."

"It started to come back to me around the same time we noticed the stars going out. I had these dreams about the TARDIS and this glowing gold light, and I remembered. I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself." Her words from the Game Station years earlier echoed.

The Doctor shook his head in wonder. "Rose Tyler, the girl who came back. Lucky for me you did." He frowned and shuddered, not intending to say that last part. "Donna bit. It's mostly settled, but now and then part of her rears up to give me a good slap."

Rose smiled again. "I knew I liked her."

"Music!" the Doctor exclaimed abruptly as if he'd just noticed the band playing. "Fancy a spin around the dance floor?" He grabbed her hand, and she barely had time to set her glass down as he pulled her towards the stage.

"I thought you didn't dance." Rose wasn't sure what to expect; in fact, they hadn't danced since, well, since he had looked quite a bit different. There wasn't much time for dancing when they were always running.

"Well, occasionally I make an exception. Why does this feel different?" the Doctor asked as he led her gracefully around the floor.

"You had a different body last time." She smiled fondly as she remembered how different he used to be, and yet in some ways he was very much the same.

"That's right! Comes a little easier to me now."

Rose laughed. "Maybe you were focusing too hard on making Jack jealous last time."

"Jealous of you or me?" He guided her neatly through a turn before pulling her close again.

"Both!" She gave a yelp as the ship lurched and they clung to each other to stay upright. "What was that?"

"Nothing good." He grabbed her hand and ran to a digital photo on the wall of a rather smug looking bald businessman with a gold tooth that twinkled at them as he smiled.

"Who's that?"

"Owner of this ship. Possibly former. And possibly a cyborg." He ran his hands along the photo frame searching for a way to open the panel. "This would be a lot easier with a sonic screwdriver.

Rose reached into her evening bag and pulled out a heavy silver pen. "Will this do?"

The Doctor swiped it from her hand and examined the device for a moment before pushing a button that caused it to emit a humming noise and blue glow. "Sonic pen," he exclaimed delightedly. "Wherever did you get this?"

"Aliens."

"Little baby ones that look like fat marshmallows?"

"How did you?" Rose stopped and pulled herself back to the task at hand. "Shouldn't you open that picture now?"

The Doctor's eyes widened. "Right." The display swung open to reveal wiring for the computer terminal. With a little more help from the sonic pen, the image of the grinning businessman was replaced by a functional display. Rose pulled out her mobile to translate the alien language on the display, but the Doctor appeared to understand it without help.

"No, no, no. Shields are offline. The engines are shutting down. The ship's orbit is decaying."

"We're going to crash," Rose whispered, not wanting to add to the panic already spreading like wildfire across the lounge. "Can you stop it?"

The Doctor looked insulted. "Of course I can stop it. Just need to get back to the bridge." Rose knew nothing was ever as easy as the Doctor made it sound. "Just watch out for the androids," he added.


	4. Chapter 4

The Titanic shuddered and shifted, sending Rose and the Doctor sliding toward the wall of the passageway. The lift wasn't working, so they searched for a stairwell that wasn't clogged with panicked passengers. Rose grabbed for a door handle at the end of the hall just as the ship lurched again, and she found herself hanging as the door swung open and nearly slammed her into the adjacent wall. She swung slightly to get her other hand onto the handle, and her feet kicked involuntarily as she dangled from the top of the passageway.

"Doctor!" she yelled as her mind absurdly wondered how she always found herself literally hanging. She risked a glance down to see the hallway that spanned the length of the ship stretch on and on below her. It was a long way down.

"Rose!" She looked to her right to see the Doctor hanging on to a doorjamb by his fingertips. There wasn't much room for purchase. "This ship should right itself in a tick. Just hang on."

Rose could see that his fingers were starting to slip and fear sliced through her. Before she thought about what she was doing, she started to swing her legs to build up momentum. She bent her knees and kicked at the door just above the Doctor's hands with both feet. The door shook but didn't open. She tried again, swinging back farther before kicking the door. The jolt jarred every joint in her legs, but the door swung inwards with a bang.

"Brilliant, you are!" the Doctor exclaimed as he adjusted his grip on the doorframe. Using his toes against the wood-panelled wall of the hallway, he scrambled upwards and pulled himself into the room. The room was just a storage cupboard, so it was a short drop from the doorway to the wall that was now a floor. He stood up and leaned out into the hallway towards Rose.

"Come on, I'll catch you."

Rose swung again, starting to feel tired. Maybe she should try gymnastics again once they made it home. She never realized it would be so useful. With one last giant swing, she let go of the door handle and sailed through the air. Her legs made it through the doorway, and the Doctor grabbed her around the waist before she could fall backwards. He pulled her the rest of the way into the cupboard, and Rose collapsed against him, exhausted. When she looked up, he flashed her that manic grin that was so familiar.

The ship bucked again, throwing them against the wall, which quickly became the floor as the ship finally righted itself.

"Sorry," Rose said with a hint of embarrassment. The Doctor had inadvertently cushioned her landing, and she quickly pushed herself off him and stood up. He put a hand to the back of his head as he got up.

"Blimey, that hurt." Rose held out a hand and pulled him to his feet. "Right. Bridge." They hurried out of the cupboard through the now upright door Rose had been hanging from and up the stairs. The door to the bridge was locked, but the Doctor made short work of it with the sonic pen.

The golden android at the helm ignored them as they entered the room. The Doctor ran to the computer screen and started tapping faster than Rose could follow.

"What's wrong with the engines?" she asked.

"Information," the android answered. "Engines are operating according to plan."

"But they aren't," Rose insisted whilst the Doctor growled at the computer. "Everyone's slipping and sliding all over."

"Engines are operating according to plan," the android repeated.

"Plan!" the Doctor shouted as he whirled to face Rose. She noticed that at some point between the cupboard and the bridge he'd lost his bowtie. "He's a robot. Good at following orders but not terribly creative, robots. He's just following instructions." He stepped up next to the android. "What are your instructions?"

"Information not available."

The Doctor frowned. "What is the source of your instructions?"

"Information not available."

The ship rocked again and the Doctor turned back to the computer. "If this ship gets too close to the Earth's atmosphere without shields it's going to get awfully hot."

"Can you put the shields back up, Captain?" Rose asked the android.

"Information: that is not according to plan."

"Almost got it," the Doctor said as he continued to work on the computer terminal with the sonic pen clenched between his teeth. "Yes!" He returned the sonic pen to his pocket and turned back to the android. "Is Max Capricorn aboard this ship?"

"Information not available."

"I think that means yes," the Doctor said to Rose, who raised a sceptical eyebrow in turn. "What is the location of the highest level of authority on this ship?"

"You have exceeded the allotted number of questions," the android answered mechanically.

Rose made an exasperated noise and repeated the question.

"Information: deck thirty-one."

"You mean we have to go down thirty floors?" The ship shook again and Rose threw her arms out for balance.

"What? No, no, no, I just fixed that," the Doctor cried with dismay. Another jolt threatened to knock them to the floor and he leaned against the computer console. "It's gone offline again. The android must have disabled the shields."

"You think it's shielded?" Rose asked, tipping her head towards the android.

"What, that? Nah," he replied with a shake of his head. Rose reached into her purse, withdrew her gun and dialled it to the lowest setting before pointing it at the android and firing. The android stiffened and tipped over.

The Doctor's eyebrows shot up. "What did you do?"

"Stunner," she said, putting the weapon back in her purse. "Overloaded the electrical circuits. Can you get the shields back?"

"Can I get the shields back," the Doctor muttered indignantly. "Shields and stabilisers on line. How's that for impressive?"

Rose rolled her eyes. "Now we go to deck thirty-one?" She wasn't looking forward to thirty flights of stairs.

"Now _I_ go to deck thirty-one. This ship should have a teleport system." He started looking over the controls and found a drawer with teleport bracelets.

"Hang on, what's this 'I'? I'm going with you," Rose protested.

The Doctor couldn't help but think of the other universe's Astrid Peth, who had died to save him. He couldn't put Rose in that kind of danger. "It's not safe."

"Not safe?" Rose demanded, her voice rising. "This whole ship's not safe. You are not leaving me behind, Doctor. Not again." Her cheeks flushed in anger and her eyes flashed as she nearly shouted at him.

The Doctor couldn't help but smile at the ferocity of Rose Tyler. How he had missed her, his pink and yellow girl. Of course, Rose was looking at him like he was mental, smiling whilst she was yelling at him. In a sudden fit of human emotion, something the Doctor was still learning how to control, he grabbed Rose by the shoulders and kissed her.

Rose was too stunned at first to react. When he released her, she looked slightly dazed. "What was that for?" she asked in a much softer tone. His only answer was a self-satisfied grin as he grabbed Rose's wrist and strapped on the teleport bracelet.

"Deck thirty-one. Going down." He grabbed her hand as they faded from the bridge.


	5. Chapter 5

The metal catwalk under their feet swayed as they materialised on Deck 31. It was much hotter down here than the bridge, and the Doctor shrugged out of his jacket muttering something about a "tuxedo of doom."

"You humans are a lot more susceptible to temperature," he commented, pushing back hair that was starting to stick to his brow.

"You'll get used to it. What's down there?" Rose asked, as she peered over the railing to see a bright golden light far below.

"Nuclear storm drives." A thought occurred to him as he stared down into the ship's engines. He grabbed Rose's hand and looked at the teleport bracelet. "Rose, if something goes wrong, hit this button to activate the teleport, and you'll be returned to the bridge."

A metallic clanging noise drew their attention to a catwalk above. An older man in a tweed suit was bashing one of the androids with fire axe, but he wasn't making headway against his much stronger opponent.

"Mister Copper!" The Doctor exclaimed, scrambling for the stairs. Rose ran after him, pausing only a moment to withdraw her gun.

"Back away!" she shouted. The Doctor grabbed the man and pulled him away as Rose fired at the android. The golden robot went rigid and toppled sideways over the railing into the chasm below.

"Mister Copper, are you all right?" the Doctor asked.

The man tugged on his suit lapels as he regarded the Doctor with confusion. "Sorry, do I know you?"

"No, sorry, I guess you don't. I'm the Doctor, and this is Rose Tyler." He gestured towards her.

"Hello," Rose smiled politely, returning her weapon to her tiny purse.

"Thank you for your assistance, Miss Tyler," he said, extending a hand to her that Rose shook without hesitation.

"What are you doing down here?" the Doctor asked.

"Hiding," he said with a hint of shame.

"Are you a passenger?" Rose asked.

"I am the ship's historian. I've studied Earth culture extensively."

The Doctor made a derisive noise. "Go on, ask him about Christmas."

"Don't be rude," Rose admonished with a swat to his arm. "But please," she said graciously, turning back to the older gentleman, "tell me about Christmas."

Mister Copper looked perplexed but answered. "Christmas is a religious and secular holiday most commonly celebrated on December twenty-fifth. It celebrates the birth of an important figure in Earth's Christian religion but has also been adopted as a commercial event, often including the purchase of gifts and decorations."

Rose nodded, not sure why the Doctor wanted to ask her about a holiday with which she was very familiar. The Doctor, on the other hand, looked horribly disappointed by Mister Copper's response. "What happened to Good King Wenceslas and the war with Turkey and Santa with sharp claws?"

"I'm afraid I have no idea what you mean." He looked to Rose for help.

"Come on, then," Rose said, grabbing the Doctor's sleeve. "Where do we find whoever's in charge of this ship?"

"Over there, I think," he pointed to a giant metal tank-like box that took up a large section of the deck. "Impact chamber."

Rose withdrew her gun again. "Of course there would be a dozen robots between us and there."

"There are? Well isn't that wizard." The Doctor saw the androids silently levitating upwards towards them. Rose shot one and waited. "What's the hold up?"

"It takes time to recharge."

"How long?"

"At this setting, about a minute." The Doctor grabbed the weapon from her hand and opened it with the sonic pen. "What are you doing?"

"Creating an electromagnetic pulse," he said, modifying the wiring inside the weapon.

"They're getting closer!" Rose shouted, picking up the discarded fire axe. She swung it at the nearest android, but it caught the axe in its metal hands and swung Rose aside. She grunted as she fell hard against the railing with her torso hanging over the edge. A blue glow radiated outward and the androids began to plummet into the engines below.

"Rose!" Warm hands grasped her waist and pulled her back onto the catwalk. She was breathless and bruised but otherwise okay. She flung her arms around the Doctor's neck and held tight. After a few seconds, she let go and pushed her hair out of her face.

"Remind me never to take a cruise," Rose muttered.

* * *

As the Doctor suspected, they found Max Capricorn, or at least what was left of him, near the impact chamber surrounded by four androids that had escaped the EMP. He was little more than a balding head mounted on a rolling metal box, and this rolling box was far less impressive than the last one. His head was exposed, unprotected. The Doctor could stop this all right now without risking Rose or anyone else. He could stop this right now and no one else would get hurt.

But that was the kind of thinking that got him and Rose exiled to this universe in the first place. He knew what his other self would do. He'd give Capricorn a chance to make things right.

"Call off your androids, Capricorn. Turn this ship around and return to Sto."

"Why would I do that?" he scoffed. "You have merely been a small inconvenience to my greater plan."

The Doctor casually crossed his arms over his chest. "You mean your plan to destroy this ship, kill everyone aboard as well as the general population of Earth, destroy your company, bankrupt the board, and retire in secret on Penhaxico Two? That plan?"

Capricorn looked momentarily shocked but quickly resumed his shark-like expression. He smiled and his gold tooth winked at them. "Yes, that plan."

"It really does that," Rose whispered to the Doctor.

The Doctor's voice was steely and his posture turned rigid. "Your plan will fail. I know, because we've done this before. Turn this ship around and return all the passengers safely to Sto. I won't let you harm anyone else on board this ship."

Capricorn looked bored. "Grab them," he ordered. The androids moved swiftly to secure both Rose and the Doctor. "It's too bad, really. You were quite clever to figure out my plan, but all you did was delay me a bit. The Titanic will burn."

"It was ice that got the Titanic, you nutter," Rose spat as she tugged futilely against the androids' metal grip. "All this technology and you can't even bother to watch the film."

Capricorn's manic grin pressed into a thin line. "Kill them."

The androids started to drag Rose and the Doctor towards the ledge. Rose dug her heels in, but it was no use as her shoes slid across the smooth floor. She looked over at the Doctor and saw him glance deliberately at her left wrist. She understood the message. The moment the androids released her, she was to activate the teleport bracelet. That, of course, assumed they tossed her over the edge whilst she was conscious. Or that the teleport still worked after getting knocked around and fried with an EMP.

"We've had a good run, yeah?" she said softly.

"Yeah," he agreed. "Rose, I'm—"

"I wouldn't change it for the world," she said, cutting off whatever apology he was going to make. They were only a foot or so from the ledge, and Rose took a deep breath, preparing for the moment the androids chucked her into the chasm.

And she waited.

The androids stopped. Then they started to fall. Rose yanked her hands away and scrambled backwards, away from the edge of the precipice. She glanced around wildly and saw the Doctor sitting on the floor close by. The last of the androids had plummeted into the engines below. The Doctor's face lit up as he saw her, and he enveloped her in an awkward but exuberant hug on the floor.

"What happened?" Rose gasped. He was holding her a little too tightly.

"What have you done?" Max Capricorn gurgled behind them.

Mister Copper stepped out from behind the wall with Rose's modified gun in his hands. "Electromagnetic pulse," he said simply. "Apologies. It took awhile to recharge."

The Doctor helped Rose to her feet and regarded Capricorn sadly. "He's dying. The EMP shorted out the systems keeping him alive. I'm so sorry."

The ship jolted again. "What about keeping us alive?" Rose asked.

"To the bridge!" the Doctor shouted.

"Teleport?"

"No, they've been hit twice by an EMP."

Rose grimaced. "So we run?"

He grabbed her hand. "We run."


	6. Chapter 6

Rose swore she was getting an entire order of chips to herself after running up 30 flights of stairs, maybe two orders. At least the androids were no longer trying to kill them, but it seemed the ship was. The shuddering was getting worse, making it hard to keep their balance on the stairs, and she feared they were going to crash after all.

Once they reached the bridge, the Doctor ordered Rose to grab the wheel whilst he tapped screens and flipped switches furiously. It was getting hotter and hotter as the ship breached the Earth's atmosphere.

"Hang on, Rose, don't pull up yet!" the Doctor shouted as he rushed furiously from console to console.

"What do you mean, don't pull?" she shouted back. "We're going to crash!"

"Just a little more and...yes! Secondary storm drives are online. Now pull!" Suddenly the ship felt like it was moving, not just falling. Rose used all of her weight to pull back on the giant wheel of the ship, but it wouldn't budge.

"It's not moving!" Rose cried, panic starting to creep into her voice. The Doctor stood behind her, putting his hands on either side of hers and helped her pull back. It felt like taking an airplane out of a nosedive, with the ship straining and shaking. Slowly but surely, they were starting to come up.

"We're gonna hit it," Rose exclaimed, her eyes wide at what she saw through the viewscreen.

"Well, would you look at that. The Titanic made it to New York."

The stern of the ship clipped the tiara of the Statue of Liberty as they pulled up, knocking out one of the spires. The Doctor winced as he caught sight of the damage on another screen. "Sorry!"

Soon the shuddering lessened and the bridge started to cool as they cleared the Earth's atmosphere. The Doctor let go of the wheel and consulted the computer screen. "The Titanic is back in orbit where she belongs," he said with a grin.

"We did it!" Rose hugged the Doctor fiercely, and he lifted her up, spinning them around before setting her down. For a moment, it felt just like old times—adrenaline followed by elation. In that moment, she forgot about the metacrisis and her confusion over the two Doctors. But then her feet touched the ground again and the moment passed.

"What about the passengers?" Rose asked, moving away from him.

"Oh, they'll be all right. I triggered a distress call the last time we were up here. Help should arrive in less than an hour."

She breathed a sigh of relief and leaned against the wall. "Is this how it went last time?"

"Sort of. A lot of people died last time, including the woman who stopped Max Capricorn," he said sadly, leaning backwards until he was shoulder to shoulder with Rose against the wall.

Rose took his hand, wanting to comfort him. "I'm sorry. But without you, a lot more people would have died."

"I'm sure Torchwood could have stopped it," he said, not meaning it. This world's version might be better, but he could never forget Torchwood's part in letting Daleks and Cybermen loose on Earth. They had nearly cost Rose her life.

"No one else could have," Rose insisted, interrupting his thoughts. "Without you, this ship would have crashed in London and made all of southern England uninhabitable. Without you, millions of people would have died."

"But we're over New York," the Doctor said slowly. "Not London."

"Donna's alternate timeline," Rose explained. "The one where she never meets you and you drown stopping the Racnoss."

"Donna stopped me. She pulled me away. In that moment, I didn't care what happened to me." He looked at Rose. "But none of that actually happened. You shouldn't remember any of it once the timeline fixed itself."

Rose shrugged. "I don't know. The walls were falling, and I was moving from world to world trying to find you. I finally did, and you were dead. No regeneration, just dead." Her voice faltered slightly on the last word, and the Doctor gave her hand a comforting squeeze. She had finally found him; only it was too late in a timeline that never should have existed. "And then I find you again and you get shot by a Dalek," she admonished, trying to lighten the mood.

"Well, that did put a damper on things. But on the other hand—no pun intended—I wouldn't be here." He wiggled the fingers of his right hand in front of her.

Rose smiled briefly before turning serious again. "If you...I mean, this version of you hadn't been created, would he still have brought me back here?"

The Doctor's face fell. There was no answer he could give that wouldn't hurt her. They'd had a similar conversation (argument, really) years before, and he'd told her he wouldn't leave her behind like he did Sarah Jane. But he'd lied, not just to Rose but to himself.

He could see how the metacrisis made the other Doctor's decision so much easier. Rose was with her family. She had a man that he knew without a doubt loved her, would protect her, and wouldn't have to watch her grow old and die whilst he would most likely live on for centuries. It was the curse of the Time Lord—or at least of the Time Lord known as the Doctor—to be alone.

"Doctor?"

He sighed. "I think he would have...to keep you safe. To keep you with your family."

A tear rolled down Rose's cheek, and she slid to the floor, clutching her knees to her chest. "It was all for nothing."

"But it wasn't," the Doctor insisted, kneeling beside her. "You helped Donna restore the timeline. I got your warning. And to see you on that street after three years…" He thought back to the jolt of excitement he felt when he saw her running towards him down a darkened street littered with abandoned cars.

"Four," Rose whispered.

"Sorry?" he asked, not quite understanding.

"It was four years for me. Time moves faster here."

"Oh, Rose…" he trailed off, not sure what to say.

"You said I could spend the rest of my life with you, but you couldn't spend the rest of your life with me. But you—he wouldn't even give me that." She looked at him accusingly.

"And that's what's different between us. I'll spend the rest of my life with you, if you want me. I promise you, Rose."

Her expression softened, though her eyes were still wet with tears and she hugged her knees like a lifeline. "I'm sorry," she said. "You didn't exactly get sent here by choice, and I abandoned you."

"I'm nine hundred and four years old. I've spent much of my life traveling alone. I think I can handle a month in London in an alternate universe," he said lightly, trying to cheer her up.

Rose swiped at her face. "I just," she started, trying to find the words to explain how she felt but failing.

"I know." He sat beside her and took her hand again. "Do you know why Donna had to stop me under the Thames? Why I didn't just leave?" Rose shook her head. "Donna Noble appeared on the TARDIS moments after I spoke to you at Bad Wolf Bay. Your jacket was still hanging in the console room. There was a part of me that just wanted to give up."

Rose looked shocked at this revelation.

"I love you, Rose Tyler. I know he would never tell you because it would make it that much harder when the day came he had to let you go. And he always knew that day would come."

"Never say never ever," Rose quoted softly without looking at him.

The Doctor frowned at the recollection. He'd only meant to temper Rose's expectations, never imagining he would lose her so soon afterwards. This was the trade-off, he supposed, and there was always a trade-off. His other self got the TARDIS and superior fully Time Lord physiology, but he got the chance to spend his forever, however long or short it may be, with Rose Tyler. This was his chance, and he couldn't waste it. "I've loved you since before we blew up Downing Street. Even a Dalek could see it, but I was too afraid to tell you."

The Doctor was quiet, strangely exhausted from his speech. His poor solitary heart was pounding. Everything was laid bare, and now it was up to Rose.

She watched him silently for a moment with a wondrous expression. She turned towards him and smiled, and most of the Doctor's anxiety abated. She hadn't run away or slapped him or told him to leave. He was still learning about human relationships, but he thought that was a good sign.

The silence, however, was starting to concern him. "Rose?" he asked cautiously.

She shifted to sit a bit more gracefully on the floor in her short dress and placed a hand on his chest much like she had on the beach in Norway. The Doctor involuntarily held his breath at the light touch as if any movement would frighten her away. Rose's hand clenched the white cotton of his tuxedo shirt, pulling him down to her and pressing her lips to his.

It was Dårlig Ulv Stranden all over again as he tentatively wrapped his arms around Rose. But this time there was no distraction, no sound of the TARDIS dematerialising to remind her that his other self was leaving her behind again. She wrapped her arms around his neck, running a hand through his hair and pulling herself even closer. Feeling more confident now, the Doctor pulled Rose from the floor onto his lap.

When they finally broke apart for air, Rose made no effort to move away, keeping her arms draped over his shoulders. She smiled, and he couldn't help but return it. Rose was content to stay that way for a very long time, and she rested her head against his shoulder.

"Titanic, come in please," a familiar voice sounded from a console by the wheel.

"Caught by my dad," Rose whispered before carefully standing up. The Doctor hopped to his feet and grabbed Rose's hand, leading her over to the console. He pushed several buttons before nodding to her. "Torchwood, this is Rose Tyler and the Doctor." She couldn't keep the smile from her face.

"Rose," Pete Tyler sounded anxious. "Are you all right?"

"Fine, fine," Rose replied breezily. She looked up at the Doctor and cocked her head towards the console.

"Yes, everything's under control, and a rescue ship will arrive shortly to tow the Titanic back to Sto."

The radio cut in and out a few times before Pete Tyler's voice was heard again. "I'm told there was a collision in New York."

The Doctor frowned, and Rose tried to stifle a laugh. "Well, just a small one," he admitted.

"You'll be coming into transmat range in about a minute. We'll beam you back. And good work, both of you."

"The stuff of legend," the Doctor said privately after closing the comm channel, squeezing Rose's hand.

She looked up at him and grinned. "The Bad Wolf and the Oncoming Storm. Together we're unstoppable."


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short note about dates in this chapter: I realised I made an error in my original calculations by assuming "Doomsday" happened in 2006 in Pete's World. I forgot another three years had passed between "Age of Steel" and "Doomsday." So just for clarification, based on some fuzzy maths, this series assumes "Journey's End" happened in 2012 in Pete's World time and goes on from there.

### PART II - The Doctor in the TARDIS with Rose Tyler

Toshiko Sato was the last person still at the hub, but tonight it was for a very specific purpose. The Doctor was coming by to give his fledgling spaceship a check-up, and Tosh had come up with a brilliant way to help him. She accompanied the Doctor down to the abandoned storeroom and noticed how much happier he looked than the last time she'd seen him. He practically crowed when he found the coral had doubled in size, explaining that he'd had no guarantee it would grow at all in this universe.

"How long will it take to grow?" Tosh asked as she got swept up in the Doctor's enthusiasm.

"Normally it takes thousands of years, but I estimate it will be ready in twenty, maybe twenty-five years." He could bequeath it to his children if it ever came to that. Not that he was entirely sure that was even possible or if it was something Rose wanted.

"I might have a way to help you," Tosh said hesitantly, interrupting his thoughts. The Doctor turned his full attention to her. "I made some modifications to the dimension cannon by harnessing the Rift energy. I could send you forward in time to when the ship is complete."

"And then I can come back with the TARDIS," he added.

Toshiko led him to a room on the floor above that housed the dimension cannon so she could show him her schematics, and the Doctor pulled out a pair of glasses he didn't actually need to study them. "You've created a Vortex Manipulator centuries ahead of schedule. Well, centuries in the other universe at any rate."

The Doctor had an attack of conscience. For as often as he'd sabotaged Jack's Vortex Manipulator, he was considering the same thing. Then again, he was at least half Time Lord and less likely to derail the timeline than the immortal Jack Harkness or a human Time Agent.

It seemed simple enough. Pop over to the future, pick up the TARDIS, install a few mechanical components, and be back in time for dinner with Rose. The beauty of having a time machine, he thought. The plan wasn't without risk, of course. If something went wrong, he could get stuck in the future without a way back, a little voice warned him, but the idea of having a functioning TARDIS two decades earlier was just too enticing.

"How far into the future do you want to go?"

"Oh, I don't know, twenty-five years? I've got to go far enough that the TARDIS is ready but not so far that Cardiff's been destroyed."

Tosh looked alarmed. "Is that going to happen?"

"In this universe? I have no idea. Anything's possible." Timelines weren't as clear to him as they used to be, and he wasn't yet certain if it was a side effect of humanity or something to do with the parallel universe.

Tosh only looked mildly reassured. She typed coordinates into her computer whilst the Doctor returned to the TARDIS coral's room to gather the equipment he needed to take with him into a large rucksack. Tosh was ready by the time he returned. "You should arrive in this very spot in 2037." She hesitated. "Did you want to phone Rose first?"

The Doctor considered for a moment but shook off any doubt as a bit of low self-esteem inherited from Donna. "No, I'll be back in no time. Or maybe that's in time."

"Okay," she said slowly. "Good luck. In three, two, one…"

The room shimmered around him, and his body felt like it was being simultaneously compressed and pulled apart. Soon his surroundings solidified again, the slightly dingy white tile looking much the same as before. A sudden wave of nausea hit him—the downside of traveling without a capsule—but then he was aware of a shrieking alarm and a number of black-clad humans running and pointing large, nasty guns at him. Adrenaline swiftly pushed away any ill feelings from the journey accompanied by the stray thought that this may have been an entirely stupid idea after all.

One of the humans, a middle-aged man with sandy hair and thankfully no gun stepped forward. The heavy-set soldier looked intimidating and knew it. "Who are you and how did you get here?" he growled.

"Hello, I'm the Doctor," he replied cheerfully, quite proud of himself for not returning rudeness with more rudeness. He pulled out his Torchwood ID that had been so handy earlier. "And how I got here is a rather long story involving a biological metacrisis and time travel. Oh, and a girl. There's always a girl in these sorts of stories."

The man's already grim face contracted further with anger. "How did you get in here?"

"The front door. In 2012."

The man was going from angry to confused when another of the black-clad humans, a slight woman with dark hair pulled tightly in a low bun, interrupted him. "You should see this, sir." Her fingers slid across the paper-thin tablet she carried. A pale blue light appeared from the ceiling and swept around the room in a circle.

"Well, that's new," the Doctor commented.

"Positive identification," a disembodied feminine voice filled the room. "Doctor John Tyler, Torchwood Institute. Welcome to the Hub." The postures of the gun-toting soldiers visibly relaxed, but they didn't lower their weapons.

"Thank you," he replied to what he assumed was a computer. Rose would be so proud of his good manners considering how many weapons were currently pointed at him.

"You're not supposed to be here," the woman with the tablet stated. "This says—"

"Spoilers!" the Doctor shouted, cutting her off and slapping his hands over his ears. "I don't want to know what it says. In fact, I _can't_ know. I've just come to collect something, and I'll be on my way."

"We can't allow that," the other man said brusquely. "Everything here is property of U.N.I.T."

"Oh, not you lot," the Doctor said in exasperation. As far as he knew, U.N.I.T. didn't yet exist in Pete's World, at least not as of 2012. "Of course _you_ you lot don't even know who I am. I just need to get something I left in the storeroom here back when this was Torchwood. Not stealing."

The woman with the tablet took a step closer to him. "I'm Lieutenant Catherine Thompson, information officer. This is Captain Jones." She gestured to her grumpy commanding officer.

"Is everyone on this planet named Smith or Jones?" the Doctor asked cheekily.

Lieutenant Thompson raised an eyebrow and took the ID from the Doctor's hand. "That's rich coming from a man whose ID says John Smith."

Captain Jones wasn't amused. "How come the computer said Tyler?"

"Smith's my maiden name," the Doctor quipped, not actually knowing or wanting the real explanation. He could come up with a few different reasons for the alias, good and bad. "Now about my property?"

Jones narrowed his eyes and looked at Thompson. "Deal with him." He waved off the other soldiers and retreated down the hallway muttering obscenities mixed with "Torchwood." The soldiers shouldered their weapons and dispersed, leaving just a couple stationed in the room along with the Doctor and Lieutenant Thompson.

"How did you get here?" Thompson asked. "And why does the computer say you're seventy-four years old? You certainly don't look it."

"Well, I was standing in this room in 2012 and next thing I know, alarms are clanging and you lot are pointing big guns at me."

"You mean you travelled in time? But how?"

"Think we might check out that storeroom now?" he asked, ignoring her questions. He started for the hallway but she grabbed his arm with a surprisingly strong grip.

"Answer my question, Doctor Tyler."

"Just the Doctor," he corrected amiably. Thompson's previously inquisitive disposition was replaced by an annoyed glare.

"Answer me, and then we'll go look for whatever it is you came forty years in the future for," she said sternly.

The Doctor's manic enthusiasm sobered. "Did you say forty? What year is it?"

"2052. Literally forty years."

"Blimey," he exclaimed putting a hand to the back of his head. "Tosh mucked that up. She was only supposed to send me twenty-five years. I knew it was too early for a Vortex Manipulator. I hope it's still here."

He started down the grey stone hallway once more, now with more urgency in every step, and this time Thompson followed him. "What's still there?"

"What I'm looking for."

Thompson grabbed the back of his jacket and tugged. "Are you always this impossible? What are you looking for?"

The Doctor glanced over his shoulder and gave her a mad grin that hid his deeper concern. "I like impossible." He pushed open the door to the storeroom and found it just as dusty though significantly more crowded than it was in 2012. Boxes and cabinets filled the room from floor to ceiling with narrow aisles spaced at even intervals. All of Tosh's equipment that had surrounded the growing TARDIS was gone. The Doctor sighed and desperately hoped that making this trip wasn't as fantastically idiotic as it was starting to look. "I don't suppose you've seen a blue police box around here."

Thompson gave him a blank look. "What's a police box?"

The Doctor frowned. "No, a brand new TARDIS would have a working chameleon circuit. It wouldn't look like a police box. It could be anything in here. Assuming it is in here." He felt a familiar brush against his mind and smiled brightly. Oh, this wasn't a stupid idea after all. It was brilliant! "Yep, it's definitely in here...somewhere."

"Don't you know what you're looking for?"

"Yes and no." Thompson stared at him, waiting for him to elaborate. "Yes, I know what I'm looking for, but I don't know what it looks like."

"How is that possible?" Thompson was losing patience with his roundabout answers.

"Highly intelligent camouflage. Fortunately, I brought my key." He pulled a silver Yale key on a long ball chain necklace from his pocket. "Technically it's Rose's key, so don't tell her I nicked it."

"Is it in a file cabinet, then?" she asked, looking at the key. She could swear it glowed slightly even though it looked like a standard, if slightly old-fashioned, key.

The Doctor looked around the room again. "Brilliant! If I wanted to hide in this mess of a room, that's exactly how I'd disguise myself."

He ran to the nearest of the tall floor-standing cabinets and inserted the key, but it wouldn't turn. He tried cabinet after identical cabinet, starting to feel discouraged as none of them opened. At the end of the second aisle, the key finally turned.

"Ha!" he shouted, flinging open the doors. A pile of dusty computer components rained down on his head. The circuit boards shattered as they hit the ground, brittle with age. Thompson was starting to think him mad despite the exemplary service record her tablet showed her. She stepped up beside him, trying to avoid treading on cables and broken bits of plastic and looked at the flimsy cabinet lock.

"Broken," she pronounced.

The Doctor shook off his discouragement and kept going until there was only one cabinet left in the storeroom. He inserted the key into the small round lock and closed his eyes.


	8. Chapter 8

Rose sat in the spacious kitchen of the Tyler estate with an untouched and long-cooled cup of tea in front of her. Three days had passed since the Doctor left, and Rose was beginning to worry. No, she'd begun to worry yesterday; now she was nearing a panic. The Doctor said he'd be gone just a couple days in Cardiff to work on some secret project with Tosh, but he should have returned to London by now. She tried calling the mobile he now reluctantly carried, but it went straight to voicemail like it wasn't on.

"Still no word from him?" Jackie asked as she set a fresh mug of tea down on the small, informal table in the middle of her state-of-the-art kitchen.

Rose just shook her head in response.

Jackie pulled out a chair to sit next to her daughter. "What's he doing in Cardiff anyway?"

Rose took a sip of her own tea and grimaced at the cold liquid. "Something to do with the Rift. He didn't say."

"And he's not there?"

Rose turned her mobile over in her hand, willing it to tell her something. "I tried the Hub. They said he wasn't, but maybe I should try again. I'll ring Tosh."

"I'm sure he's all right, sweetheart," Jackie said patting her hand. She was trying to be reassuring but was entirely unconvincing.

Rose suddenly felt defensive and pulled her hand away. "He didn't leave, if that's what you're thinking."

"I didn't say that!" Jackie exclaimed. "I thought you said things were better between you two."

"They were. They _are_ ," Rose amended, dropping her mobile to the table and letting her head fall to rest on her hand. Things had been wonderful the past couple weeks. They'd even gone on a few proper dates—ones that didn't involve running or mortal peril. By the second one, Rose had actually dared to wear heels for the first time in ages, and the Doctor had been momentarily perplexed as to why Rose was suddenly taller than usual.

"You've never been one to sit around and wait," Jackie told her as she snagged a biscuit from the untouched plate on the table. "Especially not when it comes to him."

Rose knew her mum was right. After being stranded in this world, she could have just given up, but she hadn't. Instead, she spent four years working with Torchwood to find a way back to him, and now here she was just moping about the kitchen.

Rose jumped up and kissed Jackie on the cheek. "Thanks, mum!"

"Wait! Where are you going?" Jackie called as Rose was halfway out the door.

"Cardiff!"

* * *

Zeppelins in Pete's World were fast and efficient but cost only as much as the train in Rose's original world. The float from London to Cardiff was only an hour and a half, and less than thirty minutes after disembarking, Rose reached Mermaid Quay and the entrance to Torchwood Three. It was getting late, lights were dimmed and most of the employees had gone home, but she'd been there enough times over the years that navigating the facility was second nature. Only a few people were still in the hub, and Rose wasn't surprised to find Toshiko Sato among them.

"Hey Tosh."

The dark-haired woman looked up from her computer with surprise. "Rose! What are you doing here?"

"Looking for the Doctor." When Tosh didn't offer any information, she continued. "He was here, wasn't he?"

Tosh's face fell and she pushed her chair away from her computer screens. "He didn't come home yet?"

"Home from where?"

"I have to show you," Tosh said, standing from her desk. Rose followed her down to the storeroom, now far less dusty since Tosh was checking on the coral every day. Rose looked at the filing cabinets and discarded machinery, not sure what she was supposed to see.

"Do you know what this is?" Tosh guided her to the cleanest spot in the room where a bronze piece of coral the size of a melon lay in a large pan of viscous liquid surrounded by modern electronics and a number of items Rose couldn't identify.

"Is that the TARDIS coral? It's so much bigger. That's what he's been coming here for?" And why hadn't he told her about it?

Tosh nodded. "The Doctor said it would take at least twenty years to mature, even with the energy of the Rift and all this equipment that even I don't quite understand."

"So where is he?" Rose found her worry increasing the more the pieces fell into place.

"I had an idea," Tosh said, looking slightly guilty. "I modified the dimension canon to send him forward in time to when the TARDIS is fully grown. He was going to get it and come right back. When he didn't come here, I assumed he went straight to London."

"But it might be London six months from now." Rose considered her options for a moment. "How close can you get me to wherever... _whenever_ you sent him?"

"Within a couple hours."

"Then get it ready. I just need to grab a few things."

"But what if you arrive after he leaves?" Tosh asked before Rose could disappear out of the room.

Rose stopped in the doorway and gave the other woman a pointed look. "Then you'll need to find him and tell him to come get me."


	9. Chapter 9

The Doctor, eyes closed, gently twisted the key in the lock of the final cabinet. It turned. His eyes opened wide, and his heart leapt. He pulled the handle slowly and the door swung outward. Inside was a cavernous, dimly lit room, at the centre of which stood a tall column emitting a green glow. He bolted inside, and the lights immediately brightened in welcome to reveal walls of pinkish-gold and a familiar-looking six-sided console. Dropping his rucksack on the metal grating by the console, he darted from point to point in the room, unable to keep still in his excitement.

"The round things!" he exclaimed, placing a hand on the circle motif that covered the high convex walls of the console room. A sharp gasp turned his attention to the doorway. Lieutenant Thompson stood on the ramp, mouth open and eyes darting around the room.

"What is it?" she breathed.

"I've got no idea," he said as he ran from the circles back to the console in the middle of the room. It still needed a monitor and a number of controls installed. He had some of the items he needed with him and figured he could scrounge up the rest eventually. "Or do you mean all this?" He waved a hand to gesture to the whole room.

"This isn't a file cabinet," Thompson whispered, still in shock. Her eyes followed the glowing Time Rotor up to the ceiling of the room, far taller than the filing cabinet exterior.

"Hardly. This is a TARDIS. Stands for Time and Relative Dimension in Space. And before you ask, yes, it is bigger on the inside. Everybody asks. Oh! I wonder if there's a wardrobe yet. I'm so tired of these normal pockets." He shoved his fists in his pockets for emphasis before removing them again to lay a hand on the console. "Been doing a bit of redecorating I see. What colour is this?"

Thompson stared. "Are you talking to the computer?"

"No, I'm talking to the TARDIS. She's sentient. Telepathic, even. Oh, rose gold. Very funny," he said drily to Thompson's confusion. "Speaking of Rose, we should really go and get her." The TARDIS made a noise that sounded like agreement.

"So this is a time machine?" Thompson asked, still looking like she might keel over any second from shock.

"And space. Why does everyone forget about space?"

"But why did you have to travel forty years to get your ship?"

"It takes a long time to grow a TARDIS. Forty years ago, she was just yea big." He held his thumb and forefinger apart to indicate. "But a very clever woman figured out how to send me to the future to bring it back fully-grown. So now if you don't mind, I have some work to do before I can head back."

Thompson straightened as the shock finally started to wear off. "I can't let you take this."

"Why not? It's my TARDIS. No one will ever miss one filing cabinet from that room. And I don't just mean because that room is a filthy mess. There's a perception filter that keeps you from noticing it."

"You can't just go running around with a time machine," she insisted.

The Doctor drew himself up to his full height and looked down at Lieutenant Thompson. "I most certainly can. That's what I've been doing for the better part of nine hundred years, more or less."

"Nine hundred?" Thompson asked. "Do people really live that long in the future?"

"Depends what you mean by people," he said airily.

"Humans," she clarified.

"Well, I did once meet a woman who was thousands of years old. She was hardly human anymore by then. Just a big flap of skin."

Thompson shuddered. "I still need to tell Captain Jones about this."

"You go do that," the Doctor agreed, sitting down on the jumpseat beside the console. "I'll wait here."

She narrowed her eyes. "In the time machine? You'll leave the second I step out that door."

The Doctor sighed. "It was worth a shot." He got down on the floor and began rummaging through the rucksack, pulling out a number of items Thompson didn't recognize. Once he seemed satisfied with the arrangement of parts on the floor, he lifted up a section of the metal grating below the console and climbed in.

"What are you doing?" Thompson demanded. She heard a high pitched hum and bent down to see a blue glow coming from something in front of the Doctor.

He answered without looking away from his work. "If you won't leave, I still have things to do. These temporal stabilisers won't install themselves. Well, not these ones, at any rate."

"What are you doing?" Thomson asked again.

This time the Doctor turned around to look at the U.N.I.T. officer. "You might want to get your hearing checked. Speaking of which, do you hear that?"

Thompson crossed her arms over her chest. "I'm not going to fall for your tricks."

"No, really. Someone's shouting." He ran past her to the door and pushed it open. They were suddenly assaulted by the sound of an alarm screeching, and the Doctor blanched in shock at the sight of Rose Tyler standing near the storeroom door carrying a gun nearly as big as she was.

"You!" she seethed as soon as she saw the Doctor's head peer out of what looked like a steel filing cabinet.

"What are you doing here?" The Doctor put his hands up placatingly as a furious Rose advanced on him. He walked slowly backwards up the ramp into the TARDIS, not that the distance would protect him from the cannon the blonde carried in her arms.

"You didn't come home."

"Oh." He backed into the console and stopped. "How long was I gone?"

Rose was so angry she hadn't yet noticed she had stepped inside the TARDIS—her eyes were focused solely on the Doctor. "Three days."

"Well, I just got here. I haven't had time to go home yet. And now you're here, so there's no point."

"This is confusing," Thompson commented from the sidelines. Rose turned on her, and Thompson involuntarily stepped back at the sight of the large weapon.

"Who's that?" Rose demanded, looking back at the Doctor.

"Lieutenant...what was it? Katie?"

"Catherine."

"Yes, that's right. Catherine Thompson of U.N.I.T., meet Rose Tyler. Apparently Torchwood doesn't own this facility anymore." He looked over at Rose, who was finally taking in her surroundings. The anger slowly melted off her face as her eyes roamed the inside of the TARDIS, and she let the cannon hang from its shoulder strap so she could run her hands gently across one of the rough coral struts.

"It's almost the same," Rose breathed. "A little newer. And a bit more pink."

"I think that's for you. I'm just glad it isn't leopard-print." He shuddered at the thought. Some of his previous regenerations had odd ideas about style.

Wide-eyed, Rose turned to face the Doctor. "You mean she still remembers me?"

"Of course. She was grown from a piece of the other TARDIS."

"But it's not a police box."

"No, the chameleon circuit works now. Blends in perfectly with her surroundings."

Lieutenant Thompson cleared her throat, having been forgotten during their conversation. "You still aren't leaving," she announced.

"There's nothing to stop me from leaving right now and just taking you with us." The Doctor started flipping switches, getting the TARDIS ready to dematerialise.

Thompson wavered for a moment and reluctantly drew her sidearm. "I'm sorry, Doctor, but I can't let you do that."

The Doctor paused his preparations to give Thompson a hard look. "You might be able to stop me, but I assure you, you can't stop Rose. Between you and me, I think she's pretty much unstoppable. And I really don't like having guns pointed at me. Now this ship was meant for a crew of six, so you can either help or you can get out."

Thompson looked from the Doctor to Rose with her much larger weapon and back again. The TARDIS made a brief but loud wheezing noise, and Thompson turned and ran down the ramp. The door slammed shut behind her.

"That's better. Now where to?"

Rose strapped her massive gun underneath the jumpseat before joining the Doctor at the console. "Just so you know, I'm still angry with you. But we should leave before someone starts shooting. I'd hate to scratch her."

"Forwards or backwards?" he asked, hoping to appease Rose for leaving her behind after promising he wouldn't do it again.

"We should go home first. My mum will kill both of us if we just swan off, and I don't have the superphone anymore."

"Right. I'll have to fix that." He started running around the console in his usual mad dance whilst Rose stayed at one station. The controls were different than the old TARDIS, so she had to wait for him to tell her what to do. The Doctor pulled a lever, and the time rotor started moving accompanied by the distinctive grating sound that only the TARDIS could make.

"So about four days after I left?"

Rose nodded. "But make sure it's days, not months or years."

The Doctor opened his mouth to protest, saw the look on Rose's face, and closed it again. "Right."

"Sometimes I don't know if it's you or if the TARDIS is just playing jokes on us," Rose commented as she pressed a hand to the console. The TARDIS' engines quieted and Rose ran for the door.

"Wait!" the Doctor shouted. "We're still in the Vortex. I have to install a temporal stabiliser, a monitor, inertial dampeners..." He continued, but Rose tuned out the barrage of necessary equipment.

"Was she not done growing yet?" Rose asked when he'd exhausted his list of requirements. "Or are you supposed to do something different for a brand-new TARDIS? Like a break-in period?"

The Doctor shook his head. "Should have taken twenty-five years at most to mature. We picked her up forty years later—Tosh made a rounding error in her calculations—"

"Fifteen years off? I've seen worse," she retorted with a pointed look in his direction.

The Doctor grimaced but continued. "Some parts just don't grow." He returned to his pile of parts on the floor and removed his sonic pen from his pocket. "I've never had a brand-new TARDIS. I've just had the one for hundreds of years, and she was already old." Something on the console sparked and the Doctor jumped back. "Oi! I wasn't calling you old."

"Yes, you were!" Rose laughed, momentarily forgetting she was supposed to be angry with him. "Have you looked around yet?"

He stopped and put the sonic pen back in his pocket. "I was waiting for you."

Rose held out her hand to him. "Then let's go take a look, yeah?"


	10. Chapter 10

"Right up here should be the wardrobe," the Doctor said giddily as he towed Rose behind him through the corridor of the new, yet familiar, TARDIS.

"Are you sure? I think it's the pool." Rose pushed open a door and they both peered in. It was neither. Instead a small kitchen greeted them with a round glass table and two chairs in the centre of the room. The countertops sparkled, as they were completely bare.

"Hmm," the Doctor frowned, disappointed he hadn't yet found the wardrobe. "I wasn't expecting the kitchen here. And not a banana in sight. Remind me to stop by Villengard." He paused for a moment. "I wonder if Villengard has bananas in this universe."

Rose tugged him away. "What is it with you and bananas?"

"Bananas are good," he protested as he opened the door across the hall from the kitchen. "Found the library."

"It's a bit smaller than the last one." Rose looked around the hexagonal room ( _must be the TARDIS' favourite shape_ , she thought) and took in the dark wood shelves filled with books that covered five of the walls from floor to high ceiling. Two ladders were propped against the shelves.

"The other TARDIS is hundreds of years old. She's had a lot more time to expand her collection."

"The fireplace is a nice touch." Rose ran a hand along the dark marble mantel. A small, overstuffed couch and a low wooden table were arranged in front of the fireplace. "It's cosy."

They continued through the twisting hallways, finding a game room and a small gym. Rose scoffed at the latter. "With all the running we do, what do I need a gym for?"

The pool was next. It, too, was smaller and made of the same pinkish coral as the control room. Light from the ceiling bounced off the water creating ripples on the walls. "Lovely," Rose declared.

"What, no sand?"

"I think I've had enough of beaches for awhile." She hadn't meant to sound bitter, but it came through anyway. A look of guilt briefly flashed across the Doctor's face.

The next stop was the wardrobe, at last. Like the library, it wasn't nearly as large as on the other TARDIS, but it still held more clothing than Rose could ever think to need. Not that it would stop her from visiting the shops.

The Doctor raced through the racks of clothing, weaving in and out as he went on the hunt for something. Rose heard him give a shout of triumph as he emerged carrying a suit very much like the one he was wearing. He handed the clothing to Rose and started removing his pinstriped jacket.

"What are you doing?" Rose asked, somewhere between disbelief and exasperation as she looked between the Doctor and the brown suit in her hands.

He stopped in mid motion with his suit jacket halfway down his arms. "I'd think that would be obvious. Changing."

"Into the same suit?"

He tossed his old jacket onto an empty rack and took the new one from Rose, putting his arms through the sleeves of the new jacket and buttoning it around his slim torso. He gave a satisfied sigh. "It's not the same at all, Rose. This one has blue pinstripes. And pockets! Much better pockets. Now for the trousers."

Rose threw the pair of trousers at him and turned around. She heard rustling but resisted the urge to peek. "Molto bene!" he exclaimed.

Rose turned around and stared. The Doctor stood before her with his hands shoved in his pockets, his tie loosened and slightly askew, and his dark hair sticking up in all directions. The suit was nearly identical to the one he'd just been wearing, and yet he looked different. Or maybe he'd been different for the past couple months and now he was back. _The Doctor and his TARDIS_ , she thought with a mix of affection and apprehension. Then a darker thought came unbidden. With a fully functioning TARDIS, he had no reason to be stuck on Earth with her, and that worried her.

"Rose?" The Doctor's voice interrupted her troubling thoughts.

"Fishing for compliments, are you?" she jabbed, turning away before he could see the doubt on her face. She left the wardrobe and pushed open the next door she found. It was a spacious bedroom, clean and modern with a large bed in the centre of the room with a blue duvet. A small sitting area took up one corner of the room, complete with a plush loveseat, and a glass and metal built-in wardrobe filled most of one wall.

"Well, now, what's this?" the Doctor asked as he looked over her shoulder.

"This is nice," Rose commented. "It even has an en suite." He heard her soft gasp as she explored the bathroom, her voice echoing. "You could fit half my mum's old flat in here." She rejoined the Doctor in the middle of the room. "Is this your room?"

His brow creased with uncertainty. "I think...I think this is meant to be our room." Once he said it aloud, it felt right, thanks to a little mental nudge from the TARDIS. It certainly didn't feel like his, and he didn't think it was meant for just Rose, either.

"Our room," Rose echoed, her earlier doubts starting to ebb. She looked at him shyly. "I like that."

"Really? I'm sure the TARDIS would give you your own room, if you like. Or you can redo this one. She gets some funny ideas about decor sometimes, but she's always liked you."

"Doctor," she said gently, stopping him with a hand on his arm before he could babble further. "I like this one."

"Oh! Well, I could just go elsewhere." He was starting to look flustered, and Rose found it adorable. She grabbed the lapel of his new suit before he could run off.

"I like it because it's ours."

"Oh," he said distractedly. "Oh!" He placed his hands on either side of her waist. "You're really okay with this?"

Rose clasped her hands behind his neck and leaned against him. "Traveling through time and space with you? I said forever, and I meant it."

"I thought you might have changed your mind. I'm not the same man I once was." He looked like he was going to pull away, but Rose wouldn't let him.

"We've both changed. When I met you, I worked in a shop. Thought that was all I was ever gonna do. Never in a million years did I think I'd be traveling to parallel worlds or become an expert on aliens."

The Doctor's eyebrow rose ever so slightly, but Rose still noticed. "I was! At least, until _you_ got here."

"Rose Tyler, you are brilliant," he said sincerely as he leaned down to kiss her.

"Brilliant enough to help you get the TARDIS ready to go?"

He grinned and pulled Rose in the direction of the console room. "I thought you'd never ask."

* * *

"What is all this stuff?" Rose asked, surveying the pile of alien tech odds and ends the Doctor had strewn around the console. When he took a breath to reply, she held up a hand. "Never mind. I wanna get going before I'm thirty. How can I help?"

The Doctor jumped down into the open gap in the floor grating and removed the sonic pen from the pocket of his new jacket with a flourish. He dragged a worn-looking black cube towards him and hefted it down into the hole. "There are three knobs on the far side of the console. Turn all of them all the way to the left."

Rose found the knobs and turned them whilst the Doctor nearly disappeared below the floor grating. She could hear the distinct hum of the sonic as he worked. "Does a sonic pen work the same as a sonic screwdriver?" she asked.

"Not really." His voice was slightly muffled. "Of course, after a few modifications and some reprogramming, it's more screwdriver than pen now." His head popped into view again. "That should do it. Turn the middle knob to the left."

Rose frowned. "It's already to the left."

"Is it?" His eyes moved rapidly from side to side as he seemed to be having an argument with himself. "Right, then."

"Right?" She started to reach for the knob.

"No, middle!"

Rose rolled her eyes. "Middle knob to the middle?"

"Right. I mean yes," he corrected hastily. "Blimey, your language is imprecise." Rose turned the knob slowly and the dim glow of the Time Rotor brightened.

The pattern of confusing instructions continued for the next hour as the Doctor installed more of the parts he'd brought with him from Torchwood. Enough floor panels had been removed to require a game of hopscotch to get from one end of the room to the other. Eventually there wasn't much for Rose to do, so she stretched out on the jumpseat and watched the Doctor work just like she used to.

"She's not going to go around looking like a file cabinet all the time now, is she?" Rose asked idly after trying to suppress a yawn.

The Doctor's head appeared just above the grating. "Nah. With a functioning chameleon circuit, she'll blend in perfectly with any surroundings. Well, at least I think so. Though she might be willing to turn into a police box if I asked nicely."

"Good. I'd gotten used to the blue box," Rose said with a smile that the Doctor immediately returned.

"Speaking of which, how did you change the sign on the TARDIS? I mean, before it was things I could explain, like graffiti, but this time you changed the TARDIS herself." The Doctor sounded genuinely puzzled.

"What do you mean?"

"After you fixed Donna's alternate timeline. All the banners in the marketplace on Shan Shen as well as the TARDIS read 'Bad Wolf.' That's how I knew you were coming back. That, and the fact that Donna told me."

Rose's brows drew together as she shook her head. "I didn't do anything. I mean, that's what I told Donna to tell you—'Bad Wolf'—but nothing else." She felt a tingling sensation at the back of her neck and the faintest suggestion of music that was too quiet to hear as she saw an image of the TARDIS, the blue police box version, with the lettering at the top shifting back and forth from "Police Public Call Box" to "Bad Wolf." "Oh!" she exclaimed.

"What?" The Doctor sounded concerned as he jumped out of the hole he was working in and bounded across the console room to Rose. "What is it?"

Rose looked up into brown eyes filled with worry. "It wasn't me, it was her."

"What?" he repeated, the pitch of his voice rising.

"The TARDIS used her telepathic translation to make you see the words."

"And how do you know that?"

"She told me. Just now." Rose stifled a smile as the Doctor's eyebrows reached even higher in surprise.

The Doctor sputtered. His brain was going faster than his mouth could keep up, wanting to simultaneously know how Rose could communicate with the TARDIS and how the TARDIS knew Rose was coming back.

Somehow Rose knew what he wanted to ask. "I looked into the TARDIS, and the TARDIS looked into me."

"You're linked."

She shrugged. "I don't really know. But sometimes I can hear her, yeah."

The Doctor shoved his hands in his pockets as he thought. He seemed to sway the slightest bit on his feet.

"Doctor, how long has it been since you slept?" Rose herself was starting to fade from the long day.

He answered immediately. "Thirty-six hours and forty-nine minutes."

"And how many times have I told you humans need to sleep? Even part-Time Lord ones." She watched as he took her rhetorical question seriously and started counting on his fingers. Hopping up from the jump seat, she grabbed the hand he was counting on and pulled him towards the hallway.

"Rose?" he asked when she opened the door to their new room. She looked back to see his cheeks looked a little more pink than normal. With a small smile she stood on her toes to give him a brief, chaste kiss.

"You need to sleep. Just sleep." She pulled him into the room with her and released his hand to check out the built-in wardrobe. As she suspected, even this smaller wardrobe had been outfitted by the TARDIS, and she selected a pair of soft lilac pyjamas from a drawer before retreating to the bathroom.

When she returned, she found the Doctor lying on the bed with his head propped up against the pillows. He'd gotten as far as removing his trainers, jacket, and tie before falling asleep. Rose carefully climbed in beside him, tucking herself against his side and laying her head against his chest. She still half expected to hear the double rhythm of two hearts beneath her ear, but there was just one. Her more-human-than-he-cared-to-admit Doctor, she thought fondly as she drifted to sleep.


	11. Chapter 11

Rose found herself sitting in a field of grass that tickled the backs of her knees. She blinked a couple times against the warm, dry air, wondering if something was wrong with her eyesight because the grass was a muted red. The tall, shining buildings of a nearby city reached for the orange sky. No, they reached for a large iridescent dome that encompassed the city.

Rose was baffled. Had they landed somewhere? She didn't see anything nearby that looked like it could be the TARDIS. How did she get outside the TARDIS? She looked down at herself to see she was still wearing the lilac pyjamas. Even more worrisome, she didn't see the Doctor. She called out for him anyway and nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard a familiar voice at her ear.

"Rose," the Doctor said softly. He was sitting next to her in the red grass even though he hadn't been there just a moment earlier, and he was wearing his usual brown pinstriped suit. He looked at her like he couldn't quite believe she was there.

"Where did you come from?" Her heart still pounded from being startled. "And where are we?"

"Gallifrey. More specifically, outside the Capitol."

Rose stared at the Doctor. She didn't know much about his home planet, but she knew it didn't exist anymore. The dreamy expression on his face didn't alleviate her concerns, either. "How did we get here?" she asked gently.

The Doctor didn't seem to notice her question. He took her hand and clasped it between both of his. "I wanted to show it to you."

_I must be dreaming,_ Rose thought. _That's the only thing that makes sense._ She pinched her thigh hard enough that it hurt. "Ow!" she exclaimed.

"What's wrong?" the Doctor asked, his eyes sharp again.

"I'm not dreaming," she replied with resignation, having no other logical way to explain how she was sitting in the middle of a field, in her pyjamas, on a planet that shouldn't exist.

"No, I am." His voice had gone distant again.

"How am I in your dream?"

He lifted his right hand and wiggled his fingers in front of her face. "Touch telepath."

Something about his explanation didn't seem quite right to Rose, nor did his rather foggy behaviour, but he seemed so certain that she relaxed and rested her head on the Doctor's shoulder. "Tell me about Gallifrey."

* * *

When the Doctor awoke, he didn't remember going to bed and was surprised to find Rose halfway sprawled across him. He gently combed his fingers through her blonde hair, trying not to wake her. Knowing Rose, it might be hours before she woke.

He'd dreamt of Gallifrey, and for the first time since the Time War, it wasn't one of burning, destruction, and death. It was the world he remembered before the war, shining and peaceful. Rose had been there with him, even though humans hadn't been allowed on Gallifrey in centuries. They'd sat in a field of soft red grass for hours as he told her about his home planet, but as he tried to remember more, the details became increasingly blurry.

Rose stirred and opened golden brown eyes. She tipped her head back to look up at the Doctor. "Hello," she said groggily.

He absently twirled a lock of her hair around his finger. "Hello. Sleep well?" Rose reached her arms up, pulled herself closer, and nodded against his chest. "You were in my dream."

"I know. I was there," Rose said into his rumpled shirt.

"What?"

Rose propped her head on her hand to look at him. "I was there, in your dream. About Gallifrey."

"What?" The Doctor repeated himself in disbelief.

"Does that happen often? You said it had something to do with your telepathy. I wasn't sure if that even worked anymore."

"I'm not as strong a telepath as…" He trailed off, not wanting to mention his other self at the moment. "But that's not how it works. I can't pull you into my dream, though I might still be able to appear in yours."

"So we dreamed the same thing?" Rose asked, confused. "Because it didn't feel like I was dreaming. It felt real."

He considered for a moment. "No, I think you were in my dream." He reached out his hand toward Rose's head. "May I?" She nodded, and the Doctor placed his fingers against her temple. "Anything you don't want me to see, imagine it behind a door." Rose nodded and closed her eyes. With the connection made, he continued, "Now, I want you to try to see inside my mind."

"But I can't," Rose protested.

"I think you can. I think that's why you can communicate with the TARDIS."

"But I've never seen anything inside your head before."

"You haven't tried. And even if you had, you wouldn't get past my shields when I'm awake unless I let you. And I'm letting you, so please just try."

Rose huffed a sigh and concentrated, not really sure how to look inside someone's mind. She thought about reaching out towards the Doctor, tracing a path from where his fingers rested lightly on her temple. Possibly inspired by his mention of doors, she saw a long hallway stretched out before her with a line of doors on either side. Every door was different, from ornately carved wood to riveted metal to smooth glass. Some were open and others closed.

Rose walked down the hallway to a simple dark blue wooden door. She supposed she was drawn to it because it reminded her a bit of the old TARDIS. The door was partly closed, so she reached out and pushed it the rest of the way open. Inside she found a bright white room with a silent gallery of moving images. It would have looked like an art gallery, except she'd yet to see one with pictures that moved.

She looked at the first image on her right and saw Donna Noble in a wedding dress standing in the middle of the TARDIS console room. As she watched, she suddenly found herself inside the TARDIS and heard the ginger woman yelling, accusing the Doctor of kidnapping her. Rose felt a wave of confusion and agitation overlaying a deep sorrow and realized the emotions weren't hers; they were the Doctor's.

She realised this memory must be the first time he met Donna. While she couldn't be sure, Rose thought the sense of sadness might have had something to do with her. She caught sight of her old purple shirt hanging on the railing as the angry bride continued her tirade and recalled that this memory had to take place right after they'd spoken at Bad Wolf Bay. Her heart broke for him, but she was glad for whatever in the universe brought Donna to the TARDIS, even if Donna was loudly and vehemently disagreeing in that moment.

Rose took a step back and the tirade ceased—she was back inside the gallery. She found another image of a panicked-looking brunette woman in an old-fashioned ivory blouse and long skirt trapped inside a clear cylinder. On a closer look, she realized the woman pounding her fists against the unyielding clear tube was Sarah Jane, and she was so young. A hand reached out in front of her—the Doctor's hand, she realised, although it was unfamiliar to her. The hand started to draw something in the dirt on the outside of the cylinder as Sarah Jane sat cross-legged on the ground watching him intently, and Rose felt concern for Sarah mixed with guilt and uncertainty.

_Sarah?_ Rose wondered. She never thought of her as anything but Sarah Jane. She saw that the Doctor had written "relax" on the cylinder, backwards so Sarah Jane could read it. Sarah Jane threw her hands up, and Rose wanted to laugh at the other woman's exasperation. Apparently some things about the Doctor never changed. She stepped back out of the memory, knowing that the Doctor would succeed in rescuing his former companion and probably go on several more adventures together before abandoning her in Aberdeen.

One more, Rose thought, fascinated by the memories. She turned around and caught a flash of long blonde hair. It was her, but something was off. The image of Rose stood in the doorway of the TARDIS backlit by an overwhelming golden glow. In fact, the Rose in the memory appeared to be glowing herself, her normally light brown eyes burning amber. She still wasn't sure what she was seeing, but she felt a whirl of conflicting emotions: dismay, joy, concern.

Then she heard his voice, her first Doctor's voice with his northern accent. "You looked into the Time Vortex, Rose. No one's meant to see that." Suddenly she realized where she was—the Game Station. This golden version of herself was the Bad Wolf, and although most of her memories of that day had returned, she was mesmerised watching herself through the Doctor's eyes.

"I want you safe, my Doctor," she whispered along with the memory of herself, although she was surprised that the voice in the memory didn't sound like her own. It was detached, soft, and echoey. A warm feeling of love enveloped her, but it quickly dissipated into fear and guilt as Rose watched herself start to wane from the immense power of the Time Vortex. She could feel he was terrified for her. The Doctor blamed himself, and it didn't surprise her one bit. He'd sent her away to keep her safe, she'd found a way back to him, and he blamed himself, as always.

Rose started to think she should step away. She knew what happened next, and she didn't want to witness the memory of his regeneration. It was still vividly burned in her own thoughts after all these years. However, she froze when the Doctor pulled the memory Rose close and kissed her. She didn't remember that happening; in fact, she didn't remember anything that happened between destroying the Daleks and waking up just before the Doctor regenerated. A burning sensation started to creep slowly downward from her head as she realised the Doctor was taking the Vortex energy from her, and that energy was going to kill him.

Rose jumped backwards out of the memory, her hands flying to her mouth. The gaps in her memory were now crystal clear. The Doctor sacrificed himself to keep the Vortex from killing her. All she'd wanted to do was to keep him safe, and she'd nearly killed him. She had killed him—her dour, sarcastic, sometimes possessive, leather-wearing, blue-eyed Doctor. The man she had first fallen in love with. The mental connection broke, and Rose choked back a sob when she felt warm arms wrap around her.

"Rose. Rose, it's all right." The Doctor—her part-human Doctor—hugged her tight. She was soaking his shirt with tears. "What happened?"

She forced herself to take a deep breath and opened her eyes but kept her face hidden against his shoulder. "It's my fault," she whispered.

The Doctor was becoming anxious. "Rose, what did you see?"

"I only meant to help. I'm so sorry."

He gently leaned back and tilted her chin up. "Rose."

She closed her eyes again, unable to face him at the moment. "It's my fault you regenerated. You nearly died to save me." Her breath hitched between almost every word.

He pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. "So that's what you saw. You said you remembered."

"I guess I didn't remember all of it." She finally looked at him and saw nothing but sympathy and concern in his expression.

"It's not your fault. You saved me and Jack and quite possibly the entire universe. You were in my head; you know I don't blame you. Besides, regeneration worked out all right for me," he said lightly. "Unless you have a thing for big ears." When he decided levity wouldn't work, he continued. "I wouldn't change a thing, Rose. Except maybe Canary Wharf, but then this me wouldn't be here."

Rose narrowed her eyes at him, but at least she wasn't crying anymore.

"That's my girl," he said brightly, knowing he was getting dangerously close to slap territory. "My brilliant, telepathic girl."

Rose blinked. She'd been so distracted by her guilt that she'd forgotten why she'd seen his memories in the first place. "But how?"

"Gift of the Bad Wolf. Side effect of the Time Vortex, I suppose. Daft, me, for not noticing years ago, but you don't seem to project, and I've always had my mental shields up. When did you start hearing the TARDIS?"

"After you regenerated. And not all the time. Just once in awhile I'd get some sort of image or hear a bit of a song. I figured she could always get in my head what with the translation and all."

"And now you can get in my head. Bit of a dodgy place, though. Don't recommend it," he teased. "Come on, then. You go wash up, and I'll make breakfast." He bent over to start putting his trainers on.

Rose hung her legs over the side of the bed next to his, although her feet didn't quite reach the floor. "We don't have any food, unless they've opened a shop in the Vortex."

He grinned cheekily. "You know how I like a little shop. Right, then I'll finish getting the TARDIS ready whilst you get yourself ready. Then we'll get breakfast."

Half an hour later, Rose was feeling much better. Her tear-stained face was now clean, her hair washed, and her fuzzy pyjamas had been exchanged for jeans and a magenta T-shirt. She found the console room apparently empty until she saw slightly dirty white Converse peeking out from beneath the console. The small space was lit blue by the sonic pen. Or was it a screwdriver now?

"Doctor?" she said softly, trying not to startle him. Either it didn't work or he was just jumpy, because she heard a faint thud followed by muffled cursing that she thought was Gallifreyan but the TARDIS refused to translate. "Need a hand?"

The Doctor scrambled out from beneath the console looking more rumpled than usual. His hair was wild and there was a black smudge across his nose that hadn't been there earlier. "Almost done," he said, wiping a hand across his brow and leaving behind another black smudge. "What?"

Rose reached out and tried to use her thumb to remove the black mark on his forehead. "You've got a little, uh…" She realised all she'd managed to do was make the smear larger. "It's not important. How's our patient?"

"Just need to wire up the monitor, and we'll be ready to go." He reached a hand into his jacket pocket. "I've got this for you, too."

She took her mobile from his outstretched hand seeing that the smartphone now said it had signal even in the Vortex. "Jiggery pokery?" she asked with a smile.

"You could say that." He leaned over the monitor, connected three wires to the back of it, and hit a button on the console. The screen flared to life, lines and characters flying across looking very much like it was booting up.

Rose peered at the screen. "Is it in English now? Most of the time I couldn't read the old monitor."

"It was usually in Gallifreyan, which the TARDIS doesn't translate. I suppose she thinks it's necessary for you to understand now, so it's in English."

"I guess that explains why I could never read all those post-it notes you liked to leave everywhere." Rose frowned when the screen suddenly switched from English to the circular characters of Gallifreyan. "Hey! You just said it's necessary."

"Well, I said the TARDIS thinks it's necessary." He realised his error and hastily continued. "And quite right, too. But I think she didn't want you to see her insulting me. Don't think I won't get the mallet," he threatened his ship, leaping away from the console before she could zap him.

"Four days after you left," Rose reminded him as he ran around turning knobs, flipping switches, pulling levers, and pushing buttons.

"We'll be just in time for breakfast with Jackie." He couldn't quite keep from wrinkling his nose in distaste.

Rose slung an arm around his waist and grabbed onto the console with her other hand to prepare for landing. "I know," she teased. "You don't do domestic."


	12. Chapter 12

Jackie Tyler relaxed on the plush sofa of her oversized living room whilst three-year-old Tony stacked blocks carefully on top of the coffee table. The ginger-haired little boy was taking his stacking seriously, so Jackie browsed television on her tablet, thinking she could watch something and have a nice cup of tea when Tony went down for his nap. The week's top show was some American sci-fi import about time travellers. Jackie scoffed, not needing any more of that in her life. Thinking of time travellers—or at least former ones—Jackie wondered if she ought to call her daughter. A full day had passed since Rose left for Cardiff with no word from her, but on the other hand, Rose had disappeared for months at a time when she was off gallivanting around with the Doctor.

"Tony, it's time for your nap," a soft voice called as the Tyler's nanny, Becky, entered the room. The toddler knocked his blocks to the floor in protest.

"Clean those up, sweetheart, and mind Becky," his mother admonished. He turned to his mother to whinge but stopped at Jackie's stern look and started putting his blocks back in their box. He stopped suddenly with a block in his hand and looked around the room. Jackie frowned at her son, but soon she heard it, too. A metallic wheezing noise. A noise she would recognise anywhere.

Jackie bolted for the back porch as the bewildered nanny stared after her. The sliding door was flung open and she scanned the expansive garden. There was no way she could miss a blue police box amidst the green of the garden, but it wasn't there. But there was no way she could have imagined that sound, was there?

She looked around again. Lawn, gazebo, flower garden, a little fountain that was emptied before Tony was born, a couple of sheds.

Wait, two sheds? Jackie could have sworn there was only one.

The door of the second shed swung open and out stepped Rose followed closely by the Doctor. Jackie ran to hug her daughter and then eyed the familiar brown-suited Doctor suspiciously with her hands planted firmly on her hips.

"All right, now tell me, which one are you? And why does the TARDIS look like a garden shed? Did you get tired of the blue box? How did you get back here, anyway? If you think you're just going to swan off with Rose and take her back to a parallel world you've got another think coming. Not to mention it's not fair to the other you that you left here. He's not so bad, really. He loves Rose, and he's a lot better at staying out of trouble than you are."

Rose tried several times to interrupt her mother's tirade without success. The Doctor, to Rose's great surprise, waited patiently for Jackie to finish. Well, patiently for him, at least, as one Converse kept a steady rhythm as he tapped his foot on the lawn.

"Well," Jackie demanded finally, "what do you have to say for yourself?"

He took a deep breath like he was about to dive into a pool. "I'm the Doctor, but you already know that, the part-human one to be precise. I don't think there's any other part-human, part-Time Lord Doctor, so that should be a sufficient identification. This TARDIS has a working chameleon circuit, so she can analyse her surroundings and pick an inconspicuous disguise—in this case, a garden shed. I'm rather fond of the blue box, thank you, and I should think it's rather obvious how we got here." He paused briefly for another breath (how did Jackie ramble on so long without a respiratory bypass?) and took Rose's hand firmly in his own.

"I may very well swan off with Rose if she wants to, though I think she's already been to enough parallel universes for one human lifetime. Can't have her tearing holes in the fabric of reality, after all. And I do love Rose, but I've never been very good at staying out of trouble."

"What?" Jackie squeaked, her mouth gaping open. She looked from the skinny madman to her daughter, who was obviously trying to stifle a laugh.

"Please don't make me say all that again," the Doctor pleaded.

"So you're not...him?" Jackie looked at Rose for confirmation. "Then how'd you get the TARDIS?"

"Can we talk inside, mum? I'm starving." Rose draped an arm across her mum's shoulders to steer her towards the house.

"Oh all right," Jackie sighed. "You're just in time for tea."

Rose looked over her shoulder at the Doctor and mouthed "tea" with narrowed eyes. "What day is it?"

"Saturday. Are you feeling all right sweetheart? You only left yesterday." Jackie paused in the entryway to the house and looked from Rose to the Doctor and back. "Didn't you?"

"Not bad for her first time out," the Doctor said proudly. "And I do like Saturdays."

* * *

"Doctor?" A small and slightly sticky hand grabbed onto his fingers. "Will you tell me a story?"

He ruffled young Tony's ginger hair, tamping down a small amount of woe that he never would achieve his dream of being ginger, and let himself be led into the living room adjoining the Tylers' enormous kitchen. He glanced back towards the kitchen table where Rose and Jackie were chatting away, oblivious to his presence.

"All right," he said, thinking. "A grand adventure, I suppose." The boy nodded. "With aliens." He nodded again. "Are you sure she's your mum?" he asked doubtfully, tilting his head towards Jackie. "You're awfully quiet."

Tony just widened his eyes, the same shade as his big sister's.

"Never mind that. Probably can't get a word in edgewise. Right then. Aliens. Big, giant aliens." He wiggled his hands menacingly and the boy laughed. "Fencorso Three, the land of giants. Of course, they don't think they're giants, but I don't even come up to the average Fencorsan knee. It's just a lot of hairy shins and oversized shoes.

"The Fencorsans are quite large and therefore aren't terribly dextrous." He contemplated the three-year-old and clarified. "They're rather clumsy. Big hands with thick fingers. Anyway, they were having a problem with their central power plant, and since I'm quite clever, they asked me to take a look. Turns out it was just a couple burnt wires on an old Chula power converter, but it was too small for them to repair. Simple for me, really."

"Simple?" Rose asked sceptically from the doorway, arms crossed over her chest. "Go on, tell him what happened next."

"Well, uh...there was a huge explosion!" He added sound effects and pantomime gestures for Tony's benefit.

"And why was there a huge explosion?" Rose prodded.

"I...er...might have put the power converter in backwards. Which...may have resulted in it overheating and setting off a chain reaction," the Doctor said quickly as his ears turned slightly pink.

"Causing a planet-wide blackout that the Fencorsans thought was sabotage, so they trapped us in a giant fish tank!"

"Which I got us out of," the Doctor muttered.

"After an hour in a glass box that smelled like fish, and by shattering the glass with your sonic. There was glass everywhere!"

"Yes, well in the end, I helped them build a new, more efficient power plant. They're better off."

Rose dropped to the couch beside him, leaving not even a millimetre between them. "And yet I remember them asking us never to come back."

The Doctor looked slightly miffed. "Well, it wasn't a terribly interesting place, anyway."

Rose smirked and was about to snog the pout right off his face when her mother interrupted.

"Oi! Not in front of the C-H-I-L-D," Jackie exclaimed far more loudly than necessary. "Besides, your father will be home any minute now."

Rose sighed and pulled away. The Doctor tried to follow her for a moment until she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Mum, we have to go get supplies for the TARDIS."

Jackie's eyes narrowed with distrust. "Help yourself to the pantry. Got half a Tesco in there. Even got some of that marmalade he's always sticking his fingers in."

Rather than being embarrassed, the Doctor seemed to brighten at the mention of marmalade. Jackie directed them to a pantry the size of Rose's old bedroom that was stocked from floor to ceiling. The Doctor looked around the room, gave a satisfied nod, and started walking briskly towards the back of the house.

"Where's he going?" Jackie asked Rose. A terrible idea occurred to her. "Oi! You are not parking your ship in my living room!" she shouted after him.

Two and a half minutes later, the TARDIS engines could be heard within the Tyler mansion. Jackie scooped up her son in her arms and glared at her daughter. The sound remained slightly muffled and nothing appeared in the living room or kitchen, so Rose stuck her head in the pantry. There, in the middle of the room stood a large wooden cupboard that barely cleared the ceiling and hadn't been there earlier. The door swung open to reveal the Doctor grinning madly.

"Perfect!" he exclaimed, giving the exterior of the TARDIS an affectionate pat.

Rose bit her lower lip as she regarded the TARDIS's new camouflage. "I keep expecting a big blue phone box. I'm worried I won't be able to find her."

"You think it's difficult? I've had centuries of her looking that way. This new look is quite a sight. Oh, but this will help." He reached into his pocket and withdrew a silver key on a familiar ball chain.

"It's just like my old one." She grabbed it and put the chain over her head.

The Doctor put a hand to the back of his neck and looked guilty. "Er, it is your old one. I borrowed it. To find the new TARDIS. Same lock and everything, you know."

"We need to work on your definition of borrowing," Rose chided as she poked him in the chest. The Doctor grabbed her wrist to pull her closer and took advantage of the relative privacy of the pantry to claim the kiss he'd been denied earlier.


	13. Chapter 13

### PART III - Just As It Should Be

"Rose Tyler, where would you like to go today?" the Doctor asked the next morning when the blonde reappeared in the TARDIS console room after storing a bag of clothes and other odds and ends from her room in the Tyler mansion. She'd already said her goodbyes to her family, and Jackie had made a number of veiled threats to the Doctor whilst Rose was busy hugging Pete. Of course, Jackie had surprised the Doctor by following her threats with a crushing hug and wet kiss on the cheek.

Rose noted the Doctor had his blue suit on today, and she almost regretted not rescuing her blue leather jacket from the back of her closet because it went so well with his suit. Maybe next time they went back to visit her family she'd be ready to get that jacket out again.

"Barcelona," Rose finally answered, having anticipated the question. Her trip through the Doctor's memories had stirred some of her own, particularly her last conversation with her first Doctor. "The planet, not the city. We never did go there, and I want to see—"

"Dogs with no noses!" they finished in unison.

The Doctor grinned and started turning knobs and flipping switches. "Barcelona in the seventy-third century should do it. Now just hold down that yellow button next to the orange button. The one on the other side," he added as Rose started to reach for the wrong yellow button.

He shoved a lever into place and the TARDIS materialised with a jolt. Even though she was holding on to the console, Rose still tipped sideways, knocking into the Doctor, who caught her with one arm around her waist. She couldn't help grinning before deftly slipping from his grasp and running for the TARDIS doors. She flung them open to reveal an emerald green grassy hill topped by a sky that was slightly more turquoise than Earth's. Pinkish fluffy clouds dotted the sky and the sun blazed with warm orange light.

Rose stepped from the TARDIS ramp onto the soft grass and had a sudden urge to kick her shoes off and run up the hill. She took a deep breath and smelled something sweet. She plucked a few blades of grass and held them to her nose thinking it was the apple grass they'd encountered on New Earth, but it didn't quite smell like apples.

"Blech. Pear," the Doctor said beside her as he wrinkled his nose in distaste. "Why couldn't it be something pleasant, like banana or even satsuma?"

A light breeze ruffled Rose's hair. "It's beautiful," she said with a smile. "But where are the dogs?"

He gave her a supercilious look that made Rose wonder if she'd gotten marmalade on her shirt. "Do you think they just roam like noseless sheep? No, we need to head into the city."

"And where's that?" Rose asked, following him up the hill. Once at the top, she could see they were in a large park. The TARDIS was the same shade of green as the grass, though it was still roughly police box sized. Tall, crystalline buildings surrounded half of the grassy park with flying shuttles zipping from building to building. Another side of the park transitioned from grass to a pink sandy beach with gently rolling waves along the shore. The final side bordered what was either a rainforest or a jungle, dense with trees and vines in a variety of greens, purples, and browns that choked out the sunlight. The jungle looked dark and foreboding compared to the sunny park and glimmering skyscrapers.

The Doctor took Rose's hand to lead her down the other side of the hill towards the city. The pleasant, leisurely walk through the grass was almost unusual.

"The TARDIS can translate for us again, yeah? 'Cause it's been years since I took any Spanish."

"Oh, they haven't spoken Spanish in Barcelona for several centuries now. They use Earth standard."

Rose frowned. "And what's that?"

"Bit of a mishmash, really. Mandarin, English, and Spanish make up the most of it, but there are words from all sorts of languages mixed in. The whole thing evolved over millennia. Well, I suppose most languages evolve over time. Except dead ones, of course. Not too many people going around speaking dead languages, though, unless you travel back to before it was dead. In which case, it isn't a dead language anymore."

"Doctor," Rose interrupted with fond exasperation. "Is the TARDIS's telepathic field working to translate?" The Doctor grinned with pride at her well-phrased question. His Rose was brilliant. She smiled back for a moment before tugging on his arm. "You still haven't answered me."

"Hmm? Oh, right. I think so," he said somewhat uncertainly. "I guess we're about to find out. Hello!" He greeted a man on the pavement dividing the park from the city. The man raised his bushy eyebrows at them but nodded in greeting before continuing on. "Not terribly friendly, him," the Doctor remarked privately once they were well past the stranger.

They continued along the pavement heading into the city, and Rose shivered slightly as the tall buildings blocked out the warm sunshine. The Doctor released her hand to wrap his arm around her against the chill of the shade, and Rose thought she could get very used to this as she leaned into him.

The next time they neared another pedestrian, Rose took the lead. "Excuse me. Do you know where we can find dogs around here?"

The brunette woman with a bluish tint to her skin nodded. "Continue two more blocks and turn right. The temple of the dogs will be just ahead. You can't miss it."

"Thanks!" she said brightly. Not only were they close, but the TARDIS seemed to be translating just fine. They followed the woman's directions and rounded the corner ahead. Rose spied a large golden statue of a dog...with no nose. The snout was a little shorter, more like a cat's than a dog's, and the overall effect was just odd. She'd seen so many alien things with the Doctor, and yet the familiar form of a dog without a nose was slightly unsettling.

"This must be the place," the Doctor said, leading her up a wide set of stairs beside the dog statue that was taller than him. The stairs that seemed to sparkle in the sunlight led to a grand room with floors tiled in a colourful geometric design, high ceilings, and walls lined with more statues of a variety of noseless dogs. These statues seemed to be life-sized as opposed to the giant over-sized statue by the entryway. Rose identified what looked like a collie, a labrador, a sheepdog of some sort, and even a little yorkie like the one the alternate Jackie had named Rose.

But the main attraction, seeming entirely out of place in the grand room, was the pack of equally noseless but live dogs roaming around the room. The diverse group of canines, maybe 25 of them, were all over the place doing whatever they pleased. Some slept, some played, some ate, but not a one of them sniffed.

"How do they smell?" the Doctor asked quietly with a look of anticipation.

Rose grinned. "Terrible!"

He grinned back and wrapped his arm around her waist. "That joke never gets old."

"But really, is that how they smell?" she asked as one of the dogs stuck its tongue out—it didn't look like it was panting, more like it was tasting the air like a snake.

"Of course. They're dogs without noses, not without a sense of smell. It's an evolution of the vomeronasal organ, something even dogs with noses have."

Rose couldn't help smiling at yet another explanation she didn't quite understand. While she'd learned a number of new fields in four years with Torchwood, biology wasn't one of them. Sometimes she thought he just made things up, anyway. She pulled him closer and whispered in his ear. "You think you're so impressive."

"Oi! I _am_ impressive, Rose Tyler," he said as he straightened up and pulled his shoulders back.

Rose pulled away with a laugh and knelt down in front of an orange, squat little corgi-like dog that had wandered over. She held her hand out like she would for an Earth dog to sniff and then wondered whether that was the right way to approach a Barcelonan dog. The dog looked up at Rose with big brown eyes and let its pink tongue loll out the side of its shortened snout. She took that as a positive sign and reached out gently to pet the corgi. The dog wiggled its butt happily as Rose gave it a good scratch behind the ears.

"What are you doing?" someone yelled in outrage. Rose jumped to her feet to see what was going on and was surprised to find three people in matching orange uniforms staring at her. Two of them held what looked sort of like Jack's sonic blaster pointed at her. Rose put her hands up in response and glanced around for the Doctor, who stepped up next to her with hands raised.

"I just remembered something important," he said quietly. "Don't touch the dogs."


	14. Chapter 14

"Well, at least we're together."

Rose paused in her examination of the cell door to glare at the Doctor. This cell wasn't so different than any number of others they'd found themselves in over the years. It was on the nice side as far as jails went—the room was clean and pristine white but completely devoid of furniture with a sturdy door that was deadlock sealed, according to the Doctor. A double-paned porthole window was their only view out into the hallway.

Given the number of times they'd found themselves in similar situations, Rose wasn't particularly concerned, even if touching one of the noseless dogs came with a three year prison sentence on Barcelona. She wasn't actually upset with the Doctor for failing to mention that rather critical piece of information, either, but it wasn't going to stop her from giving him a hard time for a bit.

"Rescue would be a little easier if one of us were on the outside," Rose grumbled as she leaned against the wall. "Like with the TARDIS."

The Doctor paced the room with his sonic screwdriver in hand. "That would be too easy, Rose. Where's your sense of adventure?"

Rose crossed her arms over her chest. "You don't have any ideas do you."

"Of course I do. Loads of ideas! Since we've been here, I've thought of twelve more modifications I should make to the TARDIS. No, wait, fourteen!" He stopped when he caught Rose glaring again. "I may be a bit short on ideas about how to break out of here."

"All right, then, assets," Rose announced as she sat down on the floor, falling back on her Torchwood training. "I've got my mobile, psychic paper, and TARDIS key." She placed all three items on the ground between her and the Doctor. "How 'bout you?"

The Doctor reached into the pockets of his blue suit jacket, arms disappearing up to the elbows. He started laying items on the ground beside him: the sonic screwdriver, a banana, a yo-yo, his new brainy specs, a handful of electronic components Rose didn't recognize, a toothbrush, a spool of twine, a variety of batteries, and a ten pound note.

The Doctor made a noise of protest when Rose snatched up the money. "Queen Victoria. You owe me ten quid," she clarified. "I thought you didn't carry money, anyway."

"Might I remind you I paid for dinner last week."

"With a Torchwood credit card," she countered with a half-smile. "Any of this going to get us out of here?"

The Doctor put on his glasses and picked up a couple of the batteries and components, squinting at them as he thought. "I might be able to blow the door open, but there's nothing here to shield us from the blast."

A faint beeping noise from outside caused them to hurriedly shove everything back into their pockets. The sonic screwdriver was hidden away just as the door whooshed open to reveal two orange-uniformed guards.

"Come with us, both of you," the shorter of the two guards demanded as he took Rose by the arm.

"Where are you taking us?" the Doctor asked the taller guard as he approached.

"You're being released," the guard replied in a soft voice that didn't match his hulking form.

"Molto bene!" the Doctor exclaimed as they were escorted down an equally bland white hallway with identical cell doors lining either side. "See, Rose, just a slight detour. No trouble at all."

The guards stopped at a junction in the hallway. " _You're_ being released," the shorter guard said with a glance at the Doctor. "She's going to the magistrate."

"What?" The Doctor tried to tug his arm away from the guard with no effect. The guard's grip was stronger than iron. He reached out his other hand towards Rose, who was just able to grasp it in hers. "No, this was all just a tiny misunderstanding. You have to let her go."

"Doctor," Rose said calmly before he could protest further. Her brows furrowed like she was concentrating on something, and it occurred to him to lower his mental shields just moments before they were pulled apart. He got a brief flash of a familiar blue police box before Rose's hand was pulled from his and the image disappeared. He held her gaze and gave her a slight nod in acknowledgment. He could see her face relax even as she was pulled around the corner out of sight.

The Doctor looked back at his guard. "Think I could get a lift?"

* * *

Back in the TARDIS console room, the Doctor contemplated which was best of his several rescue plans as he started preparing to move his ship to the justice building. He could get the TARDIS to materialise around Rose, but that risked picking up guards with weapons. He reached into his pocket to grab the sonic screwdriver, but his hand brushed against something small and rectangular. He pulled out the psychic paper with a grin and pulled the lever to make the TARDIS dematerialise.

The Doctor stepped out into a small room that was quiet until a crash and a shrill shriek intruded. He turned to see a frightened humanoid woman with her hands gripping pastel green hair. Shards of ceramic and a spreading pool of brown liquid covered the ground next to her feet. The Doctor looked around quickly but found the room otherwise empty.

"Why were you in the refrigerator?" the woman squeaked.

Puzzled, the Doctor looked behind him to see that the TARDIS now looked like a large gleaming metal refrigerator, identical to another one just on the other side of what appeared to be an employee lounge, judging by the row of coffee machines lining one counter.

"Appliance repair," he replied cheerfully, holding up the psychic paper. "I don't recommend using this one. It seems to be causing frozen food to explode. Nasty mess in there. Might take an entire week to get sorted."

The woman glanced from the psychic paper to the Doctor's manic grin and back before blinking twice and scurrying out of the room. He waited a moment and exited the lounge into a busy hallway. He spied a computer display partway down the hall that quite helpfully listed the various proceedings scheduled that day. He quickly found Rose's name beside a courtroom number with the status listed as in-session and ran towards the room.

He found the assigned number next to a grand set of wooden double doors that he shoved open with more force than necessary. The doors hit with a hollow bang and every eye in every colourful head in the crowded room moved to focus on the Doctor. He couldn't help a small thrill of pleasure at the grand dramatic entrance. He saw Rose seated by herself on a raised platform at the front of the room, and she grinned when he caught her eye.

He strode briskly up the courtroom aisle towards a woman in what looked like a barrister's wig, except it was purple. The woman arched an equally purple eyebrow over the rim of her glasses as the Doctor approached. "Apologies for the intrusion, your honour, but I'm here to collect your prisoner on behalf of a higher authority."

"And whose authority would that be?" the judge asked as she reached for the paper the Doctor placed on her bench. "The Shadow Proclamation," she huffed bitterly as she pursed her fuchsia lips. "Of course. I thought they usually sent Judoon, though."

The Doctor leaned closer to the judge and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "Between you and me, the Judoon are a bit thick. This prisoner is far too clever for those rhyming rhinoceri."

The judge nodded in agreement before motioning to the guards to bring Rose to her. "Escort the prisoner back to this man's transport," she instructed.

The Doctor resisted glancing at Rose. "That's not necessary. I assure you, she won't get away from me," he said confidently whilst giving the judge his most charming smile.

"Very well." The judge turned a hard glare on Rose. "I would tell you never to come back to this planet, but I doubt that will be an issue where you're going."

Rose frowned at the woman's harsh words but was soon pulled away by the Doctor's firm grip on her arm. She slumped her shoulders and kept her head down, playing along as he led her up the long aisle back to the courtroom doors. Grumbles and whispered epithets from the crowd followed them, and Rose was still baffled how just petting a dog had evoked such hostility.

The moment the double doors swung shut behind them, the Doctor threaded a hand into Rose's hair and pressed his lips to hers. When they broke apart only seconds later, the white walls of the hallway had turned mauve.

"That can't be good," Rose commented.

The Doctor shook his head and grabbed her hand. "Run!"

They careened down the hallway back towards the break room that housed the TARDIS, but the Doctor stopped short in front of the computer display embedded in the wall. Instead of courtroom assignments, it now displayed a scrolling news alert. A video in one corner of the screen showed an orange-clad guard sobbing in front of a familiar golden dog statue.

"Someone's taken the dogs?" Rose asked as she read the screen. The Doctor shushed her gently as he tapped the video, which expanded to take up half the display and was now accompanied by sound.

"They just vanished," the guard in the video said between sobs. "There was nothing we could do."

"Transmat?" Rose suggested.

"Possibly." The Doctor pulled her down the hallway and into the employee lounge. Rose watched in confusion and the Doctor pulled open the door of a large refrigerator filled with milk cartons and takeout containers. "Not that one." He spun around to the second identical refrigerator across from it and yanked open the door to reveal the TARDIS.

"Never gonna get used to that," Rose muttered as she followed him into the TARDIS. The Doctor had his specs on again and was staring intently at the monitor.

"Now unless this Barcelona is very different, I don't think the dognappers are local, which means we're looking for a ship." Rose ran around the console to join him. "This one," he pointed at a blip on what looked like a radar screen, "is leaving in quite a hurry."

"Well, what are we waiting for?"

The Doctor grinned at Rose and started preparing the TARDIS for travel. After only a minute, they materialised with harsh jolt that settled into constant rattling. Rose released her death grip on the console but kept her arms out for balance. "What's with the shaking?"

"Their artificial gravity is a bit rubbish. Engines could use a tune-up, too." He held out a hand to Rose. "Come on, then. Let's bring Lassie home. And Fido and Toto and Benji. Oh, and Rin Tin Tin. I just like saying that one."

"And Scooby-Doo, too?" Rose added with a cheeky grin.

The Doctor paused to look at her seriously. "Scooby-Doo is a cartoon."

"Oh, so the dog from _The Wizard of Oz_ is all right but a cartoon dog isn't?"

He wrapped one arm around her waist and dropped a kiss on her hair. "Exactly."


	15. Chapter 15

The dognappers' ship was hot and cramped. The hallways were narrow and poorly lit, and between the heat and the constant shaking, Rose was feeling sick to her stomach.

"What are we looking for?" she asked softly as she kept a tight grip on the Doctor's sleeve. "I mean, other than dogs with no noses?"

"Transmat controls to send the dogs back. A way to disable the engines would be even better. Slow them down long enough for the Barcelonan authorities to catch up." He looked around again to get his bearings. "Their engineering bay should be right though here." He held the sonic screwdriver up to unlock the large metal door and slid it open slowly.

The room was only slightly more spacious than the hallway, though far better lit thanks to large overhead lamps hanging from the ceiling. Tools and wires were scattered everywhere, and Rose flinched when she accidentally knocked a spanner with her toe, causing a metallic scraping sound that could be heard even over the constant rattling of the ship. The Doctor's head whipped back towards her, and she made an apologetic face.

The Doctor must have seen what he needed, as he suddenly took off in a series of surprisingly light leaps across the room. Rose followed as quickly as she dared given the clutter. When she caught up to him, he was running the sonic screwdriver across a giant electrical panel. Satisfied with the readings, he yanked the second and fifth levers down, and the shaking finally ceased. Rose took a deep breath, already feeling better now that the ship had stilled.

Using the sonic, the Doctor opened the same panel that contained the levers and pulled a handful of wires, seemingly at random, and stuffed them in his pocket. "That should stop them for at least a couple hours. Hard to go anywhere when your engine's missing a power coupler. And I speak from personal experience."

Back in the hallway, they heard footsteps and darted inside the nearest door, which proved to be another tiny storage cupboard. They stood still as two statues pressed close together in the tight space until they were sure the threat had passed. Now that the ship had become so quiet, they could hear the door to the engine room slide open and shut again. Making their way carefully from the cupboard, the Doctor sealed the engine room door shut, locking the crew inside.

"There's two down."

"And only three more," Rose added.

"How do you know that?"

"The TARDIS scanned for lifesigns when we landed. Thirty-two in total, not counting us, and twenty-seven of those are dogs." When the Doctor looked duly impressed, she added, "You don't always need to waltz in blindly."

"It gets tiresome knowing everything," he replied glibly. "Right then, three of them, two of us—"

"And twenty-seven dogs," Rose added with a raised eyebrow and knowing look.

"I like the way you think, Rose Tyler. Distract them with the dogs, waltz on to the bridge," he grabbed Rose's hand and twirled her around, "and use the transmat to send dogs and dognappers alike back down to Barcelona."

Rose's arm jerked as he tugged her into a sprint down the hallway. "Do you know where we're going?" she panted. Even partly human, he seemed to have more energy than her.

"All jokes aside, those dogs do smell rather terrible. I'm following their scent."

"Just promise me you won't lick one."

The Doctor stopped abruptly in front of a door and looked at her curiously. "Why would I lick one?" Rose just shook her head as the Doctor pulled his sonic screwdriver out to open the door. "Release the hounds," he exclaimed as the door slid open. "I've always wanted to say that."

The dogs bolted out of the small holding cell and took off in all directions. The Doctor and Rose continued quietly towards the front of the ship, ready to hide at any sign of the dognappers. The pounding of boots on the metal floor gave them plenty of notice to slip into another cupboard just off the main hallway. The Doctor pulled Rose in after him and slid the door shut, keeping his other arm around her. Rose could feel him practically vibrating with energy.

Once the sound of footsteps faded, they poked their heads into the empty hallway before fully exiting the safety of the cupboard. Rose paused for a moment, finding a metal canister that was likely a fire extinguisher in the back corner of the cupboard. It had good heft but wasn't so heavy that Rose couldn't swing it easily, so she decided to take it with them. The found the ship's cockpit staffed by just one man. He looked human from what Rose could see, with short black hair, two arms, and a torso clad in a dirty black jacket. The Doctor entered the small space first whilst Rose stayed hidden in the hallway.

"Hello," the Doctor called brightly. "Just wondering where you keep your transmat controls. There didn't appear to be any in the engine room, so if there's any logic at all to the layout of your ship, they must be up here."

The man jumped up from his seat to face the Doctor. "Who are you?" he growled. "How did you get here?"

"I'm the Doctor." He edged his way towards the viewscreen so the man's back was to the door. "And this is my lovely girlfriend, Rose."

Rose nearly paused in shock mid-swing but managed to keep focused, hitting the man in the side of the head with the fire extinguisher. The final dognapper tumbled to the ground, unconscious, and Rose gave the Doctor a bewildered stare. "Girlfriend?"

"Is that the wrong term?" he asked innocently as he looked down at the display panel in search of transmat controls. "Humans always seem so preoccupied with these labels. Figured if I'm partly human now, I ought to learn the lingo. Aha!" Rose watched mutely as he started entering coordinates into the ship's computer and flipping switches rapidly. "Five dognappers are now safely ensconced in our former jail cell on the planet surface." When Rose still didn't comment, he looked back at her. "Rose?"

She shook her head to clear it a little. There was domestic and then there was _domestic_. "No, I s'pose that's right, it's just weird coming from you. Very weird. And you're _alien_ ," she said, sticking her tongue out at him. The Doctor bounded across the small cockpit in a single leap and pulled her tight against him, lowering his head to hers for what Rose considered a proper snog. She fisted one hand in the back of his blue suit jacket as the nails of her other hand raked through his hair. The Doctor finally let her go with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"Now let's bring Lassie home."

"What about the ship?" Rose asked, rather proud of herself for such rational thought at the moment.

"Oh, it's not going anywhere. The Barcelonans will be along soon enough to confiscate it."

They ran hand-in-hand back to the TARDIS and into the kitchen, where they pulled out a jar of peanut butter and a package of biscuits to lure the dogs inside. Once the TARDIS assured them all 27 dogs were on-board amid the chaos of barking and wagging tails, the Doctor hurriedly moved the ship back to the temple on the planet's surface. The doors to the TARDIS swung open automatically as the Doctor and Rose herded all of the dogs out to the sound of surprised exclamations from the Barcelonans outside. With all the dogs out of the TARDIS, the Doctor and Rose hurried down the ramp to witness the joyous scene in the temple. The noseless dogs ran around happily, seemingly unaffected by their misadventure. The people ranged from smiling to crying to dancing around the edges of the room. A few more ran outside to spread the good news.

"Not bad for a day's work, Miss Tyler," the Doctor commented, giving her hand a squeeze.

"Kinda average, really," she deadpanned. Rose tensed when a woman in long red and orange robes rushed up to them. She wondered if she should have stayed inside the TARDIS after being declared persona non grata on Barcelona.

"Thank you! Thank you both so much," the woman gushed, taking Rose's free hand in hers. "How can we ever repay you for what you've done?"

"Really, it was nothing," Rose said hesitantly. She looked up at the Doctor. "This is what we do."

"You are the guardians of the dogs," the woman continued, unfazed. She gestured to someone behind her. "Please accept our gesture of gratitude." A man in an orange caftan approached them holding a squirming puppy reverently in his hands. The noseless puppy gave a high-pitched bark as the man passed him to Rose. She cuddled the puppy against her chest as she looked at the Doctor with pleading eyes.

"No pets," he declared, deliberately avoiding her gaze. "Your human ones were bad enough. Mickey, Jack, the one with the…" He made a circular gesture towards his forehead.

"Oh, we could call him Jack," she said, lifting the wiggling grey furry bundle up in front of her face.

The Doctor was trying his hardest not to give in. "We live on a ship, Rose. What would we do with a dog?"

Rose's face fell a little. "You're right. It wouldn't be safe for him." She hugged the puppy one more time before handing it back to the man in the orange robe. "But there is one thing you could do," she said to the woman.

"Simply name it," she said anxiously, wringing her hands in front of her.

"Get rid of my arrest record so I can come back to this planet to visit."

"Of course," she replied, clapping her hands. "We can overlook your infraction for the guardians of the dogs. But don't do it again," she said, suddenly turning serious.

Rose drew back a step at the sudden shift in attitude and only the Doctor's hand on her back kept her from bumping into the TARDIS. "And that's our cue," he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her back into the safety of the TARDIS. He wasted no time removing them from the dubious hospitality of Barcelona into the Time Vortex before taking a seat beside Rose.

"I'm sorry about the puppy," he said softly. It was always hard for him to deny Rose anything.

She leaned against him on the jumpseat and rested her head on his shoulder. "No, you were right. The life we lead isn't exactly pet-friendly."

"Maybe it will be, one day. We could get a house with a nice garden to park the TARDIS. And a dog. Although probably a dog with a nose, at least if the house is on Earth."

Rose sat up and turned to look him in the eye. "Who are you and what have you done with my Doctor?"

"Oi! I'm not saying next week. Call it a retirement plan. We've got a whole lot of travelling to do before then."

Rose smirked and settled back against him. "Yeah, I know. You don't do domestic. 'Cept I'm not so sure I believe you anymore."


	16. Epilogue

Rose woke to an empty bed aboard the TARDIS. She'd gotten used to that pretty quickly, given the Doctor didn't need nearly as much sleep as she did. More often than not, she found him tinkering with something in the console room whilst he waited for her to get up. Some things never changed.

She got out of bed and slipped on a dressing gown, making her way to the kitchen first. A cup of tea sat on the table, still hot, judging by the steam rising from it. She sat down at the table and carefully lifted the mug to her lips, taking a tiny sip in case it wasn't meant for her. Becoming part human hadn't altered the Doctor's preference for overly-sweetened tea. Fortunately the cup tasted of tea, not just liquid sugar, and she felt significantly more awake by the time she'd finished it.

The Doctor had yet to make an appearance, and as if waiting for a cue, the TARDIS sent her a brief image of the console room. It was the first place she would have looked for him anyway, but it was nice to have confirmation. Rose left her mug in the sink and padded out to the console room, expecting to see pinstriped trouser-clad legs and trainers sticking out from under the console, but the room was empty.

Odd, Rose thought. Why would the TARDIS send her here? "Doctor?" she called aloud.

A moment later, he popped into the hallway just beyond the console room. He was once again in his brown suit, but it was unusually rumpled. His hair was strangely flat, and he looked like he hadn't slept in days.

"Were you up all night again?" Rose asked in a concerned tone as she crossed the room to meet him. She wrapped her arms around his thin waist and laid her head against his chest. She felt him pull her closer as he rested his cheek on her hair. She pulled back slightly to see his face, and the dark circles under his eyes worried her. He'd been less energetic than usual for the better part of a week. She placed a hand on his cheek. "Is everything all right?"

The Doctor only smiled in response before lowering his head to hers and thoroughly kissing her. When they broke apart, both slightly breathless, Rose momentarily forgot she was supposed to be worried.

"I have a surprise for you," the Doctor announced giddily. Although he looked like he could use a good nap, he still managed to bounce on his toes with excitement. "Close your eyes."

Rose raised a suspicious eyebrow before complying. She heard him walk away followed by the sound of a door opening before he came back. It sounded like he was wheeling something behind him, and Rose had no idea what it could be. She prepared herself to react positively, even if it turned out to be a giant toaster.

"Though a puppy on the TARDIS didn't seem like a good idea, I thought we could use another companion."

Rose, her eyes still closed, couldn't help a tiny frown at the word "companion." "Can I open my eyes now?" she asked with slight apprehension.

She felt his hand brush her unkempt hair behind her ear. "Yes," he said, keeping his hand on her shoulder. Rose wasn't sure what to expect, but the squat metal form on the floor in front of her wasn't it.

"K9!"

"Hello mistress," the robot dog's synthesized voice greeted. He was a little less boxy than Sarah Jane's K9 but retained the same red eye piece, oscillating satellite dish ears, and antenna-like tail.

Rose knelt down next to K9 to give him a closer look, noting the colourful buttons spread across his back and the blue collar with burgundy pinstripes around his neck. "You can call me Rose."

"Affirmative, mistress Rose." Rose laughed and looked up at the Doctor who was grinning proudly at them.

"May I present K9 Mark V," he announced grandly. "Loyal, intelligent, and hover-capable."

Rose stood and looped her arm through the Doctor's. "You built a robot dog. Wherever did you get the parts?"

"I made a little side trip to the fifty-first century one night when you were sleeping."

"And you stayed up all night working, didn't you?"

He nodded. "Well, maybe several nights. Do you like him?"

"I love him," Rose responded emphatically. "And I love you, my Doctor." She stood on her toes and wrapped her arms around his neck to kiss him.

As the Doctor held her close, he couldn't help hearing a little voice in the back of his mind telling him that despite the single heart and exile in a parallel universe, maybe he hadn't gotten such a bad deal after all. He might only have another fifty years or so to his human lifespan, but he could spend them with Rose, together in the TARDIS, just as it was meant to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Here we are at the end. Thanks for tagging along! There are more adventures in store for Rose and the metacrisis Doctor, starting with "Golden Age of Impossible." There's also an angsty one-shot, "A Proper Goodbye for the End of Time," which was actually written next but is chronologically story number four in this series.


End file.
